For much of the AI boom, investors focused on the obvious winners: Nvidia Corp. (Nvidia (NVDA)) and memory-chip makers such as Micron Technology Inc. (Micron (MU)).

But a quieter trend has emerged over the past month.

Some of the biggest stock-market winners have been a group of former 1990s technology titans once associated with PCs, networking equipment and enterprise hardware.

Dell Technologies Inc. (Dell (DELL)) and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. (HPE (HPE)) have roughly doubled in a month.

Cisco Systems Inc. (Cisco (CSCO)) and International Business Machines Corp. (IBM (IBM)) have both risen by 40%.

The common denominator is artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Dell Showed How Fast the Demand Is Compounding

The market's sudden enthusiasm for Dell and HPE stems from a simple realization: building AI requires far more than chips.

Think of the artificial intelligence boom as a new kind of factory. The chips from Nvidia are the engines. But an engine alone moves nothing.

It needs a chassis, wiring, cooling and a power supply. In the data center those are the servers, the storage and the networking that Dell, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Cisco build.

Dell's latest earnings report offered one of the clearest examples.

Dell reported artificial intelligence server revenue of $16.1 billion last quarter, up 757% from a year earlier, alongside $24.4 billion in new orders.

Dell also lifted its fiscal-year AI server revenue outlook to roughly $60 billion.

Jordi Visser, head of AI Macro Nexus at 22V Research, described Dell as sitting at the center of the AI buildout because it serves hyperscalers, enterprises, sovereign customers and cloud providers while supplying servers, storage and networking infrastructure.

Hyperscaler capital spending has climbed from roughly $261 billion in 2024 to an estimated $805 billion this year, and 22V Research, citing Goldman Sachs, sees it approaching $1.6 trillion annually by 2031.

Visser highlighted that Dell's results show AI demand is expanding beyond Big Tech and into the broader economy.

The result has been a dramatic rerating of the stock.

HPE received a similar boost after investors began treating its AI server business as a major beneficiary of the next wave of enterprise AI spending.

Cisco Hasn't Participated to the Same Extent

While Cisco has rallied sharply, its gains remain far below Dell's and HPE's.

That raises the question: Is Cisco next?

Unlike Dell and HPE, Cisco is not primarily an AI server manufacturer. Instead, it occupies a different but equally important position in the AI ecosystem — networking.

At Cisco Live this week, the company unveiled a series of AI-focused announcements, including Cisco Cloud Control, a new AI-powered network management platform, new Silicon One-powered switches and routers, and additional security products designed to address AI-related cyber threats.

On Wednesday, Goldman Sachs analyst Michael Ng said the event reinforced Cisco's ability to benefit from customers investing in AI infrastructure and preparing for growing AI-driven security risks.

“We come away from Cisco Live with a deeper understanding of synergies across Cisco's end-to-end portfolio across networking, observability, and security as customers seek to invest in AI infrastructure, simplify network operations, and prepare for growing AI-driven security risks,” the analyst said.

Cisco said its next-generation G300 Silicon One chip will deliver roughly twice the speed of its predecessor and support future enterprise and hyperscale networking systems.

Goldman raised Cisco stock's 12-month price target from $116 to $125, while keeping a Neutral rating.

The Missing Piece: AI Networking

Investors have largely rewarded companies selling the “compute” side of AI.

Networking has received less attention.

Dell's AI server revenue is already growing at triple-digit rates, whereas Cisco's AI exposure remains more indirect.

Still, market leadership during technology booms often broadens over time. In the 1990s, Dell, Cisco, IBM and HP were among the companies that built the physical infrastructure behind the internet era.

Three decades later, investors are increasingly asking whether those same infrastructure names could become some of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI era as well.