Pleydell-Bouverie: AI infrastructure will continue to lead the market in 2026

Watch on YouTube ↗  |  January 15, 2026 at 12:43  |  4:19  |  CNBC
Speakers
Clare Pleydell-Bouverie — Co-Head of Global Innovation, Liontrust Asset Management

Summary

Clare Pleydell-Bouverie, co-head of Liontrust's Global Innovation Team, says AI infrastructure will continue to lead the market in 2026. She expects networking, optical gear, and fiber to be the next bottleneck as AI clusters and data centers scale. She also highlights power constraints driving behind-the-meter energy, gas turbines, and nuclear, with Constellation Energy and Ciena as specific picks.

  • Clare Pleydell-Bouverie expects AI infrastructure to continue leading the market in 2026.
  • She sees networking, optical gear, and fiber as the next major AI bottleneck.
  • Scale-up networking is described as a 10x opportunity versus scale-out networking.
  • Power constraints are forcing data centers toward behind-the-meter energy solutions.
  • Gas turbines are the first-call power option due to speed of deployment.
  • Nuclear is highlighted as key for data-center power, with Constellation Energy as a scale player.
  • Ciena is presented as an enabler of long-haul data-center interconnection.
Ideas
Clare Pleydell-Bouverie Co-Head of Global Innovation, Liontrust Asset Management 0:26
AI infrastructure leads market in 2026.
The firm's playbook of investing in bottlenecks has worked well over the last three years, especially in AI infrastructure, and Clare Pleydell-Bouverie believes AI infrastructure will continue to lead the market in 2026 because that is where the bottlenecks, returns, and rate of innovation are concentrated.
AIQ HIGH
Clare Pleydell-Bouverie Co-Head of Global Innovation, Liontrust Asset Management 0:54
Networking is next AI bottleneck.
The next AI infrastructure bottleneck in 2026 will be networking, optical gear, and fiber, because as AI chip clusters scale from about 100,000 to a million chips and data centers are connected together, networking demand scales non-linearly.
IGN Optical gear Fiber HIGH
Clare Pleydell-Bouverie Co-Head of Global Innovation, Liontrust Asset Management 1:43
Data centers need behind-the-meter power.
It all comes down to power: the U.S. grid is essentially sold out, so data-center customers must bring their own energy through behind-the-meter solutions, and about a third of data centers under construction are already using some form of behind-the-meter power.
XLE Behind-the-meter power HIGH
Clare Pleydell-Bouverie Co-Head of Global Innovation, Liontrust Asset Management 2:06
Gas turbines first call for power.
Gas turbines are the first call for behind-the-meter data-center power because they can be deployed quickly, and the gas-turbine backlog stretches beyond 2030.
XLI HIGH
Clare Pleydell-Bouverie Co-Head of Global Innovation, Liontrust Asset Management 2:11
GE Vernova backlog extends beyond 2030.
GE Vernova is a key gas-turbine supplier whose backlog stretches beyond 2030, demonstrating strong demand for quick-to-deploy gas turbines in behind-the-meter data-center power.
GEV MED
Clare Pleydell-Bouverie Co-Head of Global Innovation, Liontrust Asset Management 2:23
Nuclear key for data-center power.
Nuclear is a key theme for delivering the power demands of data centers, with 6.6GW already signed with nuclear companies, and it should play out throughout 2026.
URA HIGH
Clare Pleydell-Bouverie Co-Head of Global Innovation, Liontrust Asset Management 2:43
Constellation Energy is nuclear scale player.
Constellation Energy is the scale player in nuclear power, and scale matters because it delivers more reliable efficiency, which is crucial for AI data centers where clusters cannot go down.
CEG HIGH
Clare Pleydell-Bouverie Co-Head of Global Innovation, Liontrust Asset Management 3:02
Ciena enables long-haul data-center networking.
The next networking leg is linking data centers across states over 100km+ because only about 200,000 AI chips can be connected together and power constraints prevent scaling within a single data center; Ciena is essentially the enabler of this long-haul optical interconnect opportunity.
CIEN Data center interconnect HIGH
Clare Pleydell-Bouverie Co-Head of Global Innovation, Liontrust Asset Management 3:31
Scale-up networking offers 10x opportunity.
Scale-up networking, which connects all GPUs to act as one coherent chip, is a 10x larger opportunity than scale-out networking and is far more complicated, making it a key growth area within AI networking.
Scale-up networking HIGH
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This CNBC video, published January 15, 2026, features Clare Pleydell-Bouverie discussing AIQ, IGN, Optical gear, Fiber, XLE, Behind-the-meter power, XLI, GEV, URA, CEG, CIEN, Data center interconnect, Scale-up networking. 9 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.

Speakers: Clare Pleydell-Bouverie  · Tickers: AIQ, IGN, Optical gear, Fiber, XLE, Behind-the-meter power, XLI, GEV, URA, CEG, CIEN, Data center interconnect, Scale-up networking