{"id":261377,"date":"2026-01-31T18:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T18:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/261377\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T18:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T18:50:09","slug":"1-ai-stock-im-buying-before-it-goes-parabolic-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/261377\/","title":{"rendered":"1 AI Stock I&#8217;m Buying Before It Goes Parabolic in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hyperscalers are planning to spend $500 billion on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure this year.<\/p>\n<p>In a move that may surprise nobody, artificial intelligence (AI) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/terms\/h\/hyperscalers\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">hyperscalers<\/a> are planning to double down on their infrastructure spend this year. According to FactSet Research, big tech is forecast to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/investing\/2026\/01\/18\/1-dirt-cheap-artificial-intelligence-semiconductor\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">spend over $500 billion<\/a> expanding their data center footprints and procuring more chips in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>What investors are probably overlooking is that rising capital expenditures (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/terms\/c\/capital-expenditure\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">capex<\/a>) is not just good news for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/investing\/2026\/01\/22\/prediction-this-monster-growth-stock-will-soar-to\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nvidia<\/a>, Advanced Micro Devices, Broadcom, or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/investing\/2026\/01\/22\/taiwan-semiconductor-manufacturing-just-delivered\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Read on to learn why Micron Technology (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/quote\/nasdaq\/mu\/\" class=\"font-bold hover:underline\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MU<\/a> 4.80%) should be the AI chip stock on your radar this year and why I&#8217;m going to buy shares.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Micron Technology headquarters with sign out front.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"880\" height=\"528\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"h-auto max-w-full rounded object-contain\" style=\"color:transparent\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769885409_104_.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Image source: Micron Technology.<\/p>\n<p>Why is everyone talking about Micron?<\/p>\n<p>As the AI infrastructure era comes into focus, developers have their eyes on use cases in areas such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/terms\/a\/agentic-ai\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">agentic AI<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/investing\/2026\/01\/22\/silicon-valley-legend-jason-calacanis-just-said-no\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">robotics<\/a>, and autonomous systems. From a technical standpoint, these applications are far more sophisticated than building a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/investing\/stock-market\/market-sectors\/information-technology\/ai-stocks\/ai-chatbots\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">chatbot<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In essence, AI workloads are going to grow exponentially in the coming years as investments in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/terms\/a\/ai-training\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">training<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/terms\/a\/ai-inference\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">inference<\/a> scale. From a budgeting standpoint, this means that big tech is no longer acutely focused on procuring as many general-purpose chips as possible.<\/p>\n<p>Expanding AI workloads fuels demand for additional memory and storage. Micron is a major player in the world of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/investing\/2026\/01\/20\/a-wall-street-analyst-just-revealed-her-top-artifi\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">high-bandwidth memory<\/a> (HBM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM), and NAND chips.<\/p>\n<p>Could Micron stock triple in 2026?<\/p>\n<p>Over the last year, shares of Micron have soared 277%. Indeed, with this level of momentum, some investors may be skittish about the stock continuing to rise.<\/p>\n<p>Even with such meteoric gains, however, Micron still trades at a modest <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/terms\/f\/forward-pe\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">forward price-to-earnings<\/a> (P\/E) ratio. This pales in comparison to other leading semiconductor stocks along the AI chip value chain &#8212; which boast forward earnings multiples in the 30ish range at a minimum.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ycharts.com\/companies\/MU\/chart\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\"><img alt=\"MU PE Ratio (Forward) Chart\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"720\" height=\"441\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"h-auto max-w-full rounded object-contain\" style=\"color:transparent;max-width:720px\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/f933265b2ce1ac202d46aa08f7649431.png\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ycharts.com\/companies\/MU\/forward_pe_ratio\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">MU PE Ratio (Forward)<\/a> data by <a href=\"https:\/\/ycharts.com\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">YCharts<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For this fiscal year, Wall Street is forecasting Micron&#8217;s earnings per share (EPS) to triple compared to last year. This seems reasonable given the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/terms\/s\/secular-trend\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">secular tailwinds<\/a> fueling investments in AI infrastructure and the specific importance of memory and storage to that narrative.<\/p>\n<p>Should Micron&#8217;s forward P\/E trade more in line with other chip leaders, shares could be headed toward $1,000 &#8212; nearly 150% higher than they are today.<\/p>\n<p>No matter where Micron stock ends up by year-end 2026, I am confident shares will trend meaningfully higher over the long term.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/author\/20479\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Adam Spatacco<\/a> has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, FactSet Research Systems, Micron Technology, Nvidia, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom. The Motley Fool has a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/legal\/fool-disclosure-policy\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">disclosure policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hyperscalers are planning to spend $500 billion on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure this year. In a move that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-261377","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}