History Says Infrastructure Booms Create Winners And Lose…

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The cloud infrastructure leader: Amazon

Amazon (AMZN +1.58%) generates most of its revenue from its retail business, but most of its profits come from its cloud infrastructure platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS controlled 28% of the global cloud infrastructure market in the second quarter of 2026, according to Synergy Research Group, putting it at the top of the booming market.

Amazon Stock Quote

NASDAQ: AMZN

Amazon

Premium Feature

Moneyball Superscore

90/100

Today’s Change

(1.58%) $3.97

Current Price

$255.37

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$2.7TMarket cap calculated using publicly traded s outstanding only. Does not include unlisted, private, or dual-class non-traded s. Implied market cap may vary.

Day’s Range

$251.08 – $256.22

52wk Range

$196.00 – $287.20

Volume

17.8M

Avg Vol

39.2M

Gross Margin

50.77%

AWS already hosts tens of millions of websites and apps, making it a linchpin of the modern internet. It also hosts Bedrock (a managed service that enabled over 100,000 organizations to build their own generative AI apps), SageMaker (a platform for training custom AI models), and specialized APIs for custom AI tasks. It even produces its own first-party AI accelerators. Anthropic, in which Amazon holds a major stake, is one of its top cloud infrastructure customers.

From 2025 to 2028, analysts expect Amazon’s revenue and EPS to grow at CAGRs of 15% and 24%, respectively. That growth should be driven by those AI tailwinds for AWS, the stable growth of its core e-commerce business, and the expansion of its higher-margin advertising business. It still looks reasonably valued at 24 times next year’s earnings.

The growing neocloud leader: CoreWeave

CoreWeave (CRWV +4.75%) was once an Ethereum miner, but it repurposed its cloud-based GPUs to process AI tasks after the crypto crash in 2018. Today, it operates 51 data centers in North America and Europe, up from just three at the end of 2022, and it’s installed over a quarter of a million Nvidia GPUs in its servers.

CoreWeave Stock Quote

NASDAQ: CRWV

CoreWeave

Premium Feature

Moneyball Superscore

81/100

Today’s Change

(4.75%) $4.15

Current Price

$91.54

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$48BMarket cap calculated using publicly traded s outstanding only. Does not include unlisted, private, or dual-class non-traded s. Implied market cap may vary.

Day’s Range

$88.60 – $91.96

52wk Range

$60.55 – $153.20

Volume

18.3M

Avg Vol

27.7M

Gross Margin

24.39%

CoreWeave claims its dedicated cloud-based GPUs can process AI tasks roughly 35 times faster and at 80% lower cost than AWS and other diversified cloud infrastructure platforms. Its top customers already include Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic, and its contracted revenue backlog hit $104.2 billion in its latest quarter. That’s more than 20 times the $5.1 billion in revenue it generated in 2025.

From 2025 to 2028, analysts expect CoreWeave’s revenue and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) to grow at CAGRs of 102% and 110%, respectively. Those are jaw-dropping growth rates for a stock that trades at seven times next year’s sales and 13 times its forward adjusted EBITDA.

The data center REIT leader: Equinix

Equinix (EQIX +1.88%), which operates 282 data centers on six continents, is the world’s largest data center real estate investment trust (REIT). It leases its centers to more than 10,500 tenants, including over 60% of the Fortune 500, and enables its customers to communicate directly with each other through 522,000 metro interconnections.

Equinix Stock Quote

NASDAQ: EQIX

Equinix

Premium Feature

Moneyball Superscore

84/100

Today’s Change

(1.88%) $19.28

Current Price

$1,042.72

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$101BMarket cap calculated using publicly traded s outstanding only. Does not include unlisted, private, or dual-class non-traded s. Implied market cap may vary.

Day’s Range

$1034.24 – $1048.00

52wk Range

$720.62 – $1128.68

Volume

153K

Avg Vol

539.1K

Gross Margin

31.69%

Dividend Yield

1.97%

Equinix also splits its data centers into smaller and denser units than many of its peers, enabling it to serve a broader range of industries and smaller businesses. UnAmazon and CoreWeave, which don’t pay any dividends, Equinix pays a forward yield of 2%. As an REIT, it must distribute at least 90% of its taxable income as dividends to maintain a lower tax rate.

From 2025 to 2028, analysts expect Equinix’s EPS to grow at a 15% CAGR. It might not seem cheap at 60 times this year’s EPS, but it trades at just 24 times the midpoint of the full-year outlook for its adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) per — which is a more accurate gauge of profits for REITs. That makes it a safe, income-generating play on the AI market.

Leo Sun is a contributing Motley Fool stock market analyst who has worked with the company since 2013, covering technology, consumer goods, industrial, and financial sectors. He became a self-made millionaire by age 40 through long-term investing, crediting lessons from Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch. Leo is a regular guest on CNBC Asia providing stock analysis on Chinese technology companies, including Tencent, Baidu, and Alibaba. He previously wrote for InvestorGuide and holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Texas at Austin.

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