Sam Altman's $70B AI Boom: 4 Stocks Getting Paid

Sam Altman is building a $70 billion-a-year AI empire. But some of the biggest winners won't be OpenAI investors. They'll be the companies getting paid to build it.

Because every new AI data center needs four things: cooling to keep the chips from overheating, electrical systems to power them, servers to run the AI, and memory to make it all work.

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And four publicly traded companies are supplying those critical pieces right now. One has seen earnings jump nearly 70%. Another is seeing profits surge even faster. And one has already signed on to supply OpenAI's massive Stargate project, with Wall Street seeing roughly 45% upside.

Today, we'll break down all four stocks, show you exactly how they're cashing in on Sam Altman's AI spending boom, and why they could have more room to run. And we're saving the one with the strongest investment case for last.

Where the $70 Billion Comes From

Let's put those numbers in perspective. A run rate just means you take the most recent month of revenue and multiply by 12. OpenAI's run rate hit roughly $50 billion at the end of September, and the company has told investors it expects to reach nearly $70 billion by year-end, and the pace keeps accelerating. Sam Altman has turned OpenAI from a research lab into a full-blown enterprise software machine, and both OpenAI and Anthropic are reportedly moving toward public listings.

Here's the kicker. One analyst estimates OpenAI alone makes up about half of Oracle's entire compute backlog. All that revenue growth is what pays for the data centers, which means the money flows straight through to the suppliers. So let's go meet them.

nVent Electric (NVT)

We'll start with nVent Electric (NVT).

This is the company that makes the electrical connection, protection, and liquid-cooling gear that keeps all those AI data centers from literally cooking themselves. A single rack can draw as much power as dozens of homes, and almost all of it turns into heat. Old-school air cooling simply can't keep up. nVent's liquid cooling pulls that heat straight off the chips. As Sam Altman's buildout accelerates, that technology has gone from a nice-to-have to an absolute must-have.

And the demand is already landing on the bottom line. This past quarter, earnings jumped nearly 70% from a year ago. And it wasn't a fluke. nVent has topped Wall Street's earnings estimates in 4 of its last 6 quarters, the last two by a wide margin.

Wall Street has taken notice. Of the 11 analysts covering shares, the consensus lands on a Strong Buy recommendation, with 10 of the 11 at either a Buy or Strong Buy recommendation. The most bullish fair value target points to almost 30% upside, and it comes from a top 14% rated analyst.

Now let's pop the hood with our Zen Ratings quant model. It analyzes every stock across 115 different fundamental, technical, and AI factors, then boils it all down to one intuitive letter grade, A through F. It also breaks out 7 component grades, Value, Growth, Momentum and more, to flag each stock's strengths and weaknesses.

nVent earns a B, a Buy recommendation, landing in the top 6% of every stock we track.

Now let's look at those Component Grades. Artificial Intelligence, which measures the likely future timeliness of shares and not how much AI the company sells, comes in at the top 17%. Growth is in the top 13%. Sentiment, also top 13%, the Smart Money crowd moving in. And the standout, Financial strength, in the top 10%, the operational excellence that shows up again and again in future earnings reports. 

But with AI capex still ramping, a solid balance sheet, and Wall Street pounding the table, nVent is a clean way to own the picks and shovels of this boom. And it's the perfect place to start, because our next company doesn't cool the data centers. It powers them…

IES Holdings (IESC)

Next up, the company literally wiring these data centers, IES Holdings (IESC).

They design and install the electrical and power systems that go inside data centers, factories, and buildings all across the country. Think of them as the master electricians of the AI boom. When a new data center goes up, somebody has to run the power to every single server rack, wire the cooling, and connect it all to the grid. That somebody is IES. And demand from these facilities just drove gains across 3 of their 4 business segments.

It's showing up in the numbers in a big way. Revenue climbed about 23% last year, and because this is a high-margin, well-run operation, that flowed straight through to earnings growth north of 70%. When a little more revenue turns into a lot more earnings, that's called operating leverage, and it's exactly what you want to see in a growth story. And with new AI data centers being announced almost every week, that order pipeline is only getting longer.

Analyst coverage is as thin as it could possibly be. The only analyst tracking the stock is from Freedom Broker. Luckily for us, he ranks in the top 5% of all the analysts we track for actual stock-picking performance. He's got a Strong Buy recommendation, and a price target that implies an upside of almost 50% from current levels. As the orders keep rolling in and more analysts discover the story, each new Buy recommendation can act as its own catalyst, pushing shares higher.

Under the microscope of our Zen Ratings, IES earns an A, a Strong Buy recommendation, in the top 3% of all stocks. Let's walk through the component grades. Growth, top 12%, foreshadowing more earnings beats ahead. Sentiment, top 2%, a really strong grade that tells you the smart money is moving in hard. And the standout, Financial strength, in the top 1%. That is the single strongest financial grade of any pick on this list, built on a review of 26 different measures of a company's health.

Put it all together, a top 1% balance sheet and years of data center work filling the pipeline, this company is firing on all cylinders.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)

That brings us to our next pick, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).

You know the name, but you probably don't know how central it has become to artificial intelligence. HPE builds the AI server racks that OpenAI-scale workloads actually run on. And through its recent Juniper acquisition, it now supplies the high-speed networking that ties thousands of those GPUs together into one giant machine. Two of the biggest bottlenecks in any AI data center are raw compute and the networking between the chips, and HPE now sells both under one roof. That puts the company right in the middle of two of the fastest-growing budgets in all of technology.

That dual role is powering explosive growth. Earnings more than doubled last quarter, up 152% from a year ago. And these beats keep coming. HPE has topped Wall Street's estimates 6 quarters running, with earnings more than doubling from a year ago in each of the last two. That is precisely the earnings momentum our model loves to see.

And here's what makes HPE stand out: even after a strong run, shares trade at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of only about 13.6. Quite cheap, all things considered.

Now let's see what the analysts are saying. There's plenty of coverage here, 19 analysts track the stock, 10 of whom have Strong Buy recommendations. The most bullish fair value target comes from a top 1% rated analyst over at Citigroup, and her coverage implies an upside of more than 25%. When the single best-ranked analyst on the name is pounding the table, it pays to listen.

Our Zen Ratings system gives HPE an A, a Strong Buy recommendation, and it has actually strengthened since this was drafted, now landing in the top 1% of all stocks. Walk the grades with us. Momentum, top 16%, shares in motion. Value, top 17%. Sentiment, a much stronger top 6% than it first showed. And the standout, Growth, in the top 2%.

Now, the best for last…

SK Hynix (SKHY)

And now, our last pick. One company controls more than half the world's supply of the memory that makes AI possible. And it signed on to feed OpenAI's Stargate. That company is SK Hynix (SKHY).

The demand is flowing right out of Altman's buildout and into this company's order book. They've already sold out their memory production well into next year, and they signed a letter of intent to feed OpenAI's Stargate project directly. And get this, SK Hynix only started trading on the Nasdaq this past July, so for most US investors, this is a brand-new name. Their most recent quarter nearly doubled what Wall Street was expecting.

Here's the kicker on valuation: even after its run, shares trade at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of only about 5.4.

Wall Street is scrambling to catch up. All 9 analysts covering shares give it a Buy or Strong Buy recommendation, zero Holds. The average fair value target implies an upside of about 45%. What's interesting is that 2 of the most bullish analysts on the panel rank in the top 1% of all analysts, and their price targets imply upside of more than 75% and almost 90%, respectively.

And under our Zen Ratings, this one is special. SK Hynix earns an A, a Strong Buy recommendation, in the top 1% of every stock we track. It's also the number 2 rated stock out of 64 in the entire semiconductor industry, sitting just behind Micron and ahead of even Nvidia.

Now let's walk the grades. Momentum is in the top 22%, and Sentiment lands in the top 21%, a bit softer than it first looked. Growth comes in at the top 12%, the AI grade at the top 8%, and Financial strength at the top 5%. And the standout, Value, in the top 1%, based on 21 different value measures. So that rock-bottom valuation we just walked through is confirmed right across the scorecard, top-tier value sitting alongside strong growth and financial strength. The one real soft spot is Safety, which grades a D, in the bottom 9% of the market, a reminder that the ride in this stock can be a bumpy one. 

So there you have it. 4 ways to get paid by the AI boom without ever buying OpenAI, nVent on the cooling, IES wiring it all together, HPE on the servers and networking, and SK Hynix on the memory.

And here's the thing to remember. Whether OpenAI goes public, whether Anthropic goes public, the spotlight on AI spending is not fading anytime soon. The suppliers get paid either way.

One more thing. The Zen Ratings are updated every single day. You can pull a free rating on over 4,600 stocks just by typing in a ticker at wallstreetzen.com, so bookmark the site and check the grade before any buy, hold, or sell decision.

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