These Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks Have Crushed Nvidia in 2026 With Gains of 67% and 121%. They Can Still Soar Higher

1 hour ago 2

Harsh Chauhan, The Motley Fool

Sat, May 30, 2026 astatine 2:33 PM CDT 6 min read

Artificial quality (AI) pioneer Nvidia is having an underwhelming 2026 truthful acold contempt delivering outstanding results 4th aft quarter. Shares of the chipmaker person appreciated lone 12% this year, good beneath the 74% leap successful the PHLX Semiconductor Sector index.

However, shares of Lumentum Holdings (NASDAQ: LITE) and Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT) person been flying precocious successful 2026. While Lumentum banal has gained 121% this year, Applied Materials has besides jumped by an awesome 67%. Both companies person benefited from massive investments successful AI infrastructure.

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Let's instrumentality a person look astatine the reasons wherefore these 2 stocks person been successful good signifier connected the marketplace truthful acold this twelvemonth and cheque wherefore they are apt to present much upside.

Blue and yellowish  cables plugged into servers.

Image source: Getty Images

AI is driving phenomenal maturation astatine Lumentum Holdings

Lumentum Holdings manufactures optical and photonic components, specified arsenic lasers, transceivers, and amplifiers, which are deployed successful the cloud, networking, and concern markets. The company's products alteration high-speed connectivity successful information centers, which explains wherefore they are successful precocious request from hyperscalers to trim latency erstwhile transmitting ample datasets.

Lumentum's gross and net maturation person taken disconnected amid AI-fueled request from information centers. Its gross successful the archetypal 9 months of fiscal 2026 (which ended connected March 28) accrued by 72% twelvemonth implicit twelvemonth to conscionable implicit $2 billion. Lumentum's guidance of $985 cardinal successful gross for the existent 4th suggests that its apical enactment volition much than treble from the year-ago period's speechmaking of $480.7 million.

This acceleration successful Lumentum's maturation suggests that request for its products is strengthening. That's not surprising, arsenic Lumentum's optical and photonics components region a cardinal bottleneck successful AI exemplary grooming and inference tasks. The high-speed connectivity enabled by Lumentum's products means AI accelerator chips don't request to beryllium idle waiting for data, thereby reducing the clip required to tally workloads successful the cloud.

Not surprisingly, the optical constituent marketplace is expected to turn astatine an yearly complaint of 21% done 2029, generating $30 cardinal successful gross astatine the extremity of the forecast period, according to marketplace probe supplier Cignal AI. So, Lumentum's addressable marketplace is poised to turn nicely successful the coming years, which is wherefore analysts expect coagulated gross maturation from the company.

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