Everybody is chasing individual AI stocks. The problem with that trade isn’t that it’s wrong; it’s that you’re competing against every other investor who’s already watching the same names, reading the same headlines, and buying at the same elevated valuations.
There’s a smarter way to approach the artificial intelligence (AI) opportunity. Instead of betting everything on one stock winning the race, position yourself across the entire supply chain. AI doesn’t run on a single company. It runs on chips, computing power, data infrastructure, energy, and security — and every one of those layers is a tradeable opportunity that most retail investors never even think to look at.
Barchart’s themed lists make this trade simple to find. Rather than building watchlists from scratch, the names are already organized by theme and ready to analyze. Here’s how to think about each layer.
Start With the Obvious — But Don’t Stop There
The AI Stocks and ETFs list is the right place to begin. This gives you the core names and funds most investors already know: Nvidia (NVDA), AMD, SNDK, MU, and the ETFs that bundle them together like GX Artificial Intelligence & Tech ETF (AIQ). Think of this layer as your baseline. The companies here are real, the revenue is real, and the growth is real.
But if you stop here, you’re in the most crowded trade in the market. Everyone owns these names. The real edge in the AI trade comes from going one level deeper.
Somebody Has to Build the Chips
AI needs computing power, and computing power needs chips — a lot of them. The Semiconductor Stocks and ETFs list goes beyond the household names to include the companies building the equipment, manufacturing the architecture, and producing the interconnects that every AI chip depends on. Names like ASML, TSM, AMAT, AVGO, and MRVL sit in this layer.
When AI spending accelerates, demand for semiconductors accelerates with it. These companies feel that tailwind regardless of which AI model or platform wins.
All Those Chips Need Somewhere to Run
The Data Center Stocks and ETFs list captures the infrastructure layer — the real estate, power delivery, and equipment that houses every AI workload in existence. Hyperscalers like AMZN, META, MSFT, and GOOGL are spending hundreds of billions building these facilities, and the companies supplying that buildout — EQIX, DLR, VRT, ETN — collect on every dollar of that spend.
This is the layer that gets overlooked most often. It’s not glamorous, but it also hasn’t stopped growing.
And All Those Data Centers Need an Enormous Amount of Power
This one surprises people. A single large AI data center can consume as much electricity as a small city, and the grid simply cannot keep up with that demand. The Nuclear Energy Stocks and ETFs list captures the companies solving that problem — CEG, VST, NNE, and others that are seeing serious institutional attention as AI infrastructure spending forces the energy conversation into the open.
The AI energy trade is real and nuclear sits at the center of it.
Every AI Network Needs to Be Protected
The final layer is cybersecurity. As AI systems handle more sensitive data, process more critical infrastructure, and expand the attack surface across every industry, the demand for security compounds with it. The Cybersecurity Stocks and ETFs list includes names like CRWD, PANW, ZS, and FTNT — companies whose growth is structurally tied to every dollar of AI buildout, whether or not the broader market is paying attention to them.
The Trade Is the Whole Chain
Instead of one concentrated bet on a single AI winner, these five Barchart themed lists give you coverage across every critical layer of the AI buildout. When spending accelerates — and it has been accelerating — chips, data centers, power, and security all move with it. When one layer corrects, the others don’t necessarily follow.
That’s the trade most investors never look for. Not one stock. The whole supply chain.
Explore all 5 themed lists, run your own technical analysis on the individual names, and use Barchart’s Stock Screener to filter for the specific setups that match your strategy.
On the date of publication, Barchart Insights did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.