Four Strong Stocks to Invest In During the AI Expansion

With $5,000 in available capital, investors have a compelling opportunity to position themselves in companies that are benefiting from the artificial intelligence boom. The landscape is clear: companies providing the critical infrastructure, chipmaking capacity, and enterprise applications are the ones positioned to capture significant value as AI spending accelerates globally through 2030 and beyond.

The key insight is straightforward—the most profitable opportunities often lie with the companies enabling the broader trend rather than participating in every speculative corner of it. Here are four stocks that stand out as smart investments to consider right now.

The Semiconductor Foundation: Where Infrastructure Investments Pay Off

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE: TSM) operates the world’s most advanced chip fabrication facilities, making it the indispensable manufacturer for the entire AI supply chain. When companies like Nvidia and Broadcom design their processors, TSMC is the one bringing those designs to life at scale. This central position makes TSMC a unique opportunity—it benefits from every major player’s investment in AI without having to compete in the design space.

The numbers support this thesis. Wall Street analysts project 31% revenue growth for this fiscal year and 22% growth in the following year, measured in New Taiwan dollars. Even accounting for currency fluctuations, these growth rates are exceptional. As long as enterprise AI spending remains elevated—projections suggest it will through at least 2030—TSMC continues to be a foundational stock to invest in.

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) remains the dominant force in AI computing hardware. The company’s graphics processing units (GPUs) have become the default choice for training and deploying AI models across the industry. Despite three consecutive years of strong performance, Wall Street analysts expect 52% growth in the fiscal year ahead, demonstrating that the story is far from over.

The skeptics worry about an AI bubble, but Nvidia’s position is fundamentally different. The company is essentially providing the picks and shovels for the AI gold rush—even if some applications disappoint, the infrastructure still gets built. For investors seeking a direct play on AI infrastructure, Nvidia remains an obvious stock to consider for a $5,000 portfolio.

Competing Technologies: Where Design Innovation Creates Opportunity

Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO) is challenging Nvidia’s market dominance through a fundamentally different approach. Rather than competing directly with GPUs, Broadcom is developing application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs)—chips optimized for particular AI workloads. These specialized designs can deliver superior performance for specific tasks while often costing less than general-purpose GPUs.

The impact is already visible. For the upcoming quarter, Broadcom expects its AI semiconductor revenue to double year over year—a growth rate that significantly outpaces Nvidia’s trajectory. While ASICs may not replace GPUs entirely, they are capturing meaningful market share from companies eager to maximize their unlimited AI spending budgets. This competitive dynamic makes Broadcom an intriguing stock to invest in for portfolio diversity.

The Application Layer: Enterprise Scale and Cloud Computing

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) operates across both sides of the AI opportunity—from providing the underlying cloud infrastructure to deploying AI capabilities in enterprise applications. Its Azure cloud platform showed particularly strong momentum, growing 39% year over year in its most recent reported quarter. With a $625 billion backlog in cloud services, Azure’s growth runway extends well into the future.

The market temporarily overreacted to certain aspects of Microsoft’s recent quarterly results, causing the stock to retreat. This pullback created a buying window—Microsoft now trades at 25 times forward earnings, a valuation level that hasn’t been seen in some time. For investors seeking exposure to AI at the application and infrastructure layer, this represents an attractive entry point to invest in a stock with significant future growth catalysts already in place.

Why These Four Stocks Matter

What unites these four stocks is their fundamental positioning in the AI cycle. TSMC provides the manufacturing backbone. Nvidia and Broadcom supply the competing processing technologies. Microsoft bridges the gap between infrastructure and practical AI deployment. Together, they represent the different layers of an expanding AI economy.

For investors with $5,000 to deploy, this portfolio approach captures exposure to both the picks-and-shovels opportunity and the end-user applications. The growth projections across all four companies suggest significant upside potential as enterprise AI adoption accelerates through 2026 and beyond—making each of these a stock worth considering for long-term investors seeking exposure to the technology revolution reshaping global business.