AI Trade Switches to Electricity: 7 Power Stocks Gaining, One Up 86%

The AI trade is rotating. For the past 18 months, the big money went to chip makers – Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom. Now investors are looking at what powers those chips.

Seven electricity and utility stocks have drawn fresh attention on Wall Street. One of them is up 86% this year, according to an ETMarkets report. Most of the group show gains between 20% and 60%.

The catalyst is straightforward. AI data centers consume enormous amounts of electricity. A single training run for a large language model can draw as much power as a small town. As cloud providers and AI labs build out new facilities, utility demand is climbing faster than anyone expected two years ago.

That's pulling in money that used to chase semiconductor growth, traders said. The rotation is still early – most sector-focused funds have only started shifting allocations in the past few months.

The seven stocks span regulated utilities, independent power producers, and companies focused on grid infrastructure. The biggest gainer, up 86%, is a merchant power operator with heavy exposure to data center contracts, the report said.

Regulated utilities are also rising, though more slowly. They get stable revenue from rate bases but can't capture the full upside of demand surges. The question for this group is whether regulators approve enough new generation capacity to meet the AI buildout.

The rotation has room to run. Wall Street's consensus on utility earnings for 2026 has been moving higher each quarter. Power-sector capital expenditure is expected to hit a record this year. Whether the stocks can sustain the pace depends on how fast the AI infrastructure buildout actually proceeds, something the chip trade taught investors not to bet against.