NEW YORK, January 1, 2026, 19:47 ET
- AI spending is a key swing factor for markets in 2026, strategists say.
- Dutch investing site De Belegger flagged AMD and ASML as long-term semiconductor winners.
- Nvidia is seeking to boost output of its H200 AI chips as China demand rises, Reuters reported.
Artificial intelligence spending is shaping investor positioning as 2026 gets underway, with strategists warning that the next phase of the equity rally will depend on whether companies can justify soaring data-center budgets.
The focus is keeping semiconductors at the center of the debate, from chip designers to the equipment makers that enable advanced manufacturing. A recent market note by Dutch investing site De Belegger singled out Advanced Micro Devices and ASML as potential long-term beneficiaries.
U.S. stocks finished 2025 with another year of strong gains, and strategists said repeating that performance will be harder without broad earnings growth and sustained AI investment. “Everything firing on all cylinders,” is what it would take, said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA. Reuters
In its analysis, De Belegger argued AMD and ASML sit on the same secular trend — AI, cloud computing and automation — but occupy very different places in the chip supply chain.
AMD is a “fabless” chipmaker, meaning it designs processors but relies on external factories for production, including partners such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, De Belegger wrote. De Belegger
The outlet pointed to AMD’s exposure to data centers through its EPYC server processors and its push into AI accelerators via its Instinct product line. It also highlighted AMD’s acquisition of Xilinx, which added programmable chips used in some specialised computing workloads.
AMD’s challenge is competition. De Belegger described the company as an alternative to Nvidia in AI chips, even if it does not displace the market leader.
ASML’s story is less about winning market share and more about being a bottleneck supplier. The company sells the lithography machines — tools that use light to print circuit patterns onto silicon — needed to make leading-edge chips.
De Belegger said ASML is the only supplier of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography systems, which are used for the most advanced chips powering AI, smartphones and high-performance computing. The outlet also flagged ASML’s recurring revenue from maintenance and upgrades on tools that stay in use for years.
The AI demand theme is playing out across the supply chain. Nvidia has approached TSMC to ramp up production of its H200 processors to meet orders from Chinese technology firms, Reuters reported, underscoring how quickly demand can strain capacity.
Year-end market summaries also show how quickly the chip trade can dominate local investor attention. In a 2025 recap, Saxo said ASML was among the strongest performers on Euronext Amsterdam in its screen, and the broker said the stock had become both the most traded and the largest holding by invested assets among its customers, overtaking Shell.
For investors, the split is clear. AMD offers a higher-beta bet on product cycles and adoption, while ASML offers exposure to the capital spending that underpins each new wave of chip complexity — and both depend on AI budgets holding up in 2026.
