Businesses invested more than $250 billion in artificial intelligence last year, as companies rush to develop intelligence-powered products and services. Spending has maintained this pace this year and is expected to increase further as Big Tech companies such as Meta, Alphabet and Microsoft compete for AI supremacy and pump more money into the technology. While these US giants dominate the conversation, countless others tend to fly under the radar, but still play important roles in the AI supply chain. From chip makers to companies that extend the lifespan of chips, here are the stocks that are attracting attention from investors and analysts. ISC The Korean company’s development of an AI chip test socket caught the attention of Kunal Desai, portfolio manager of GIB Asset Management’s Emerging Markets Active Engagement Fund. Test sockets are used to test the speed, performance, and safety of chips before shipping them to customers. This is “important for thermal and velocity validation,” Desai said. ISC was acquired by South Korean multinational company SKC in 2023. SKC stock has fallen 1% over the past year. Aspeed, a Taiwanese company that specializes in server management and also develops its own chips, is well-positioned as remote monitoring of data centers is “increasingly in demand as AI servers scale up,” Desai said. Remote monitoring improves data center costs and operational efficiency. The company’s stock price has increased 37% in the past 12 months. Alchip Alchip, also headquartered in Taiwan, is a semiconductor design and manufacturing company specializing in manufacturing custom chips for customers. Custom chips are becoming increasingly important to AI companies given the increased performance and control provided by task-specific infrastructure. Amazon began developing AWS chips in 2023, and OpenAI is also designing its own chips. Desai said this is an attractive business due to “deep intellectual property and high-value engagement with customer retention.” Alchip stock has risen 52% over the past year. Komico South Korea-based semiconductor precision cleaning company Komico has also attracted Desai’s attention. Precision cleaning services that can restore performance to aging chips and other equipment are “critical to yield management at advanced nodes,” he said. GIB AM’s portfolio manager said of each company he selected, “These are tenacious, high-margin businesses that operate at critical links in the AI chain, yet still command a discount of more than 50% compared to their U.S. peers.” Komico stock has soared 130% over the past year. SanDisk Bank of America on Wednesday raised its stock price on SanDisk, which develops, manufactures and provides data storage products and services, and raised its price target from $125 to $230. SanDisk products are built on NAND flash technology, which retains data even when the power is turned off, and is used in everything from phones to data centers. According to a Bank of America memo, the company’s data center revenue doubled to 12% of the total in the first half of 2025. The company’s stock has soared over the past year, rising 501%. “We rate SNDK Buy. We expect demand for data storage using NAND to grow over time, primarily driven by generative AI and eSSD share growth/demand in data centers,” the analysts said in a note, referring to embedded solid-state drives, a more reliable data storage technology. Applied Materials According to Morgan Stanley, Applied Materials is well-positioned to benefit from growing demand for DRAM, a type of computer memory chip. Despite underperforming its competitors, analysts at the investment bank expect Applied Materials to “change its narrative over the next six months, starting with the October quarter results and dispelling these concerns.” Morgan Stanley expects Applied Materials to issue stronger guidance in January and be on a positive path to 2026. The investment bank forecasts growth in the mid-single digits, or 4-6%, in the first quarter of 2026, compared with Wall Street’s 2%. This growth should allow Applied to outperform competitors such as KLA and Lam Research in terms of return on investment. “Over the next six months, we believe AMAT has an opportunity to meaningfully shift the narrative surrounding its stock and give investors confidence that it will outperform WFE in 2026,” the memo said, referring to wafer fabrication equipment, a semiconductor manufacturing technology. Applied Materials stock has increased 28% over the past 12 months.
