Ed Ludlow discusses Nvidia's plan to partner with Wall Street firms to raise $500 billion for AI infrastructure, aiming to turn its compute platform into an investable asset class. Separately, Intel upsized a share sale to $20 billion on overwhelming demand, highlighting strong investor appetite for AI supply chain stocks. Ludlow argues the AI buildout is a tectonic shift with strong balance sheets making it sustainable, and suggests screening top YTD gainers in major indices for AI momentum plays.
- Nvidia, with Blackstone, BlackRock, Apollo, and Brookfield, seeks $500B in third-party capital for AI infrastructure via SPVs.
- The mechanism would make Nvidia's compute platform an investible asset class, renting capacity to customers.
- Intel raised $20B in an upsized share sale, oversubscribed with $100B in demand, signaling hunger for AI-related stocks.
- Intel's stock has more than tripled year-to-date, driven by data center CPU demand in the AI era.
- Ed Ludlow calls the AI infrastructure buildout a tectonic shift, with 2026 as a key moment.
- Unlike the dot-com bubble, tech companies now have very strong balance sheets, supporting the AI boom's sustainability.
- Ludlow recommends looking at the biggest YTD percentage gainers in the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500, which are largely AI plays, as potential follow-on issuance candidates.