Investors have significantly expanded their positions in artificial intelligence-related stocks, leading to substantial price surges for major chipmakers beyond Nvidia in the second quarter. The market capitalizations of Micron Technology and Intel more than tripled, with Advanced Micro Devices following closely behind.
During this period, the combined market value of these three companies increased by approximately $2 trillion, positioning them as the 10th, 11th, and 12th largest technology companies in the U.S. by market capitalization, respectively.
Although Nvidia remains the most valuable company among AI chipmakers and continues to report significant revenue growth, its stock price rose by only 15% in the second quarter. Its hyperscale data center clients—Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft—delivered mixed results during this time. Among them, Meta's stock price fell by nearly 2%, making it the worst performer in this group, while Alphabet's stock led the gains with a 24% increase.
Analysts at Barclays noted in a report on Tuesday that capital has shifted from AI hyperscale cloud providers to AI-enabled chip companies, with market enthusiasm subsequently spreading to the semiconductor sector, driving a significant rally.
Shares of Micron Technology, one of the three major computer memory manufacturers, surged over 240% this quarter, adding approximately $920 billion to its market value. Last week, the company reported that its latest quarterly revenue grew more than fourfold, primarily driven by AI chipmakers significantly raising memory prices. Micron's gross margin for the third quarter—profit after deducting cost of sales—jumped to 84.9% from 39% a year earlier.
The stock price of traditional central processing unit manufacturer Intel soared by 216% this quarter, increasing its market capitalization by $480 billion. Intel is building chip factories in the United States and is benefiting from a recovery in CPU demand as AI shifts toward devices.
Shares of Intel's CPU competitor, Advanced Micro Devices, nearly tripled, adding $615 billion to its market value. AMD also manufactures graphics processing units but lags far behind Nvidia in that market.
Analysts previously described the market dynamics this quarter as a "power shift" within the AI industry. Investors have been positioning in companies that produce chips complementary to Nvidia's, while betting that the massive capital expenditure expansion in AI data centers will drive higher performance for more companies across the supply chain.
Beyond memory and processors, other segments of the AI infrastructure supply chain also experienced substantial stock price increases.
Networking equipment company Marvell Technology saw its stock rise approximately 200%, while Arm Holdings, which licenses technology and architecture to other chip firms, gained 134%. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (ticker SMH) rose 71% over the same period, marking its best quarterly performance since its launch in 2000.
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