Darius McDermott, managing director of FundCalibre, explores why the biggest investment opportunities in AI may lie beyond the technology giants, in the mining, infrastructure and specialist companies helping to power the next phase of the revolution.
For a technology revolution that looks set to touch every part of the global economy, the stock market gains for AI have been narrowly led. Investors have focused on a handful of hyperscalers, memory and semiconductor groups.
Yet, the beneficiaries of AI are likely to be far broader and, unlike the early winners, many remain undiscovered by the market.
While the benefits of AI are, as yet, unquantifiable, there is no question over the level of capital spending going on data centres and other AI infrastructure.
It is increasingly clear that for a ‘new world’ technology, the AI revolution remains dependent on ‘old world’ commodities. It requires specialist metals, extraordinary power generation, and building materials to support its growth.
The overlooked beneficiaries
These areas have proved to be the real bottlenecks in the AI roll-out and companies involved in solving the problem are likely to become more valuable as a result. Evy Hambro, manager of the BlackRock World Mining investment trust, says:
“The multiples (for these companies) tend to be a lot lower than some of the more attractive popular areas that have had this super-high rate of growth, yet these businesses are second or third-order beneficiaries of the spending. They’re attached to the same growth initiative but also with a lower likelihood of AI eating their lunch.”
He says they are already capturing “some of the economic rent” from the AI build out. AI is helping create new demand, which is coming after a long period of underinvestment.
Hambro adds: “There are a multitude of countries all around the world wanting to spend on AI. This is the biggest companies in the world spending their cash flows for years to come on a trend that is important to them and to governments.
They need metals to do that.”
The mining industry is also using AI effectively to boost productivity, says Hambro. “The mining industry has been so far behind on the use of technology on the data they have, so what we’re now seeing is companies sending AI agents into their data lakes, with some incredible statistics on what that’s done to productivity and costs.” He believes this will improve profitability for the sector over the long term.
Looking beyond the mega-caps
The AI phenomenon has been concentrated in large-caps so far. They have been the ones with the economic firepower to make the necessary investments.
However, as the AI roll-out progresses, it is likely to draw in more beneficiaries. There is historic precedent for this: during the internet boom, it was led by larger companies, but smaller companies ultimately reaped stronger rewards.
Cedric Durant des Aulnois, CEO at Montanaro, says: “If history is any guide, the next leg belongs to the businesses that harness AI as an operating tool, that supply the unglamorous but mission-critical components of AI infrastructure, and that have been largely overlooked precisely because they do not carry an AI badge on their chest. That is the hunting ground for active Smaller Company investors today.”
Like Hambro, he points out that as adoption accelerates, it is becoming an increasingly physical phenomenon. Data centres require land, power, cooling, cabling, water, insurance, financing, controls and ongoing maintenance. “This moves AI from the digital world and into the infrastructure of the real economy.”
In the WS Montanaro Global Select portfolio, the team holds companies such as Belimo, a textbook “picks and shovels” winner*. “While much of the market’s attention is focused on AI chips, a key constraint is increasingly cooling.
Rising rack power densities are accelerating adoption of liquid-cooling and other advanced thermal-management technologies, where Belimo’s products play a critical control and monitoring role.” Another company is Kainos, which helps companies implement AI – “Demand is growing for trusted partners that can embed AI into real business processes.”
And finally, Entegris, which supplies advanced materials, filtration products and process solutions used throughout semiconductor manufacturing*.
He adds: “As AI adoption broadens, a different set of winners is beginning to emerge: the companies providing the infrastructure, services and specialist expertise that make deployment possible.”
The real assets powering the revolution
There is also a real assets play for AI. Cohen & Steers’ head of global infrastructure Ben Morton, who works on the Cohen & Steers Diversified Real Assets fund, says: “The real constraint (for AI) is power generation.
So if you don’t have the ability or expertise to build new natural gas plants, you’re locked out of the most material growth driver the sector has ever seen.” This makes a case for long-term infrastructure investment.
The fund also has exposure to data centre growth via a number of the REITs it holds**. The group has sought to invest not just in companies building data centres, but also companies that are running data centres once they are built.
The group points out that there is around $1 trillion of AI-related capital expenditures and a data centre market that is supporting a multi-hundred-billion-dollar acquisition pipeline***.
All these areas remain less discovered by the market than the obvious AI winners such as semiconductors and memory groups. As the AI trend builds and matures, investors may start to look for second-order beneficiaries, and these areas may be reappraised.
In each case, investors are not making a binary bet each fund is investing more broadly – but it may be a way to keep skin in the game on the AI trade without paying top tier prices.
*Source: Montanaro, June 2026
**Source: fund commentary, Mary 2026
***Source: Bloomberg, 8 June 2026
Past performance is not a reliable guide to future returns. You may not get back the amount originally invested, and tax rules can change over time. Darius’s views are his own and do not constitute financial advice.
Main image: AI, boliviainteligente-kECRXz0m42A-unsplash
