WHO GETS PAID IN THE AI CLOUD STACK
AI clouds are becoming the middle layer between scarce AI infrastructure and companies that actually need compute:
Who supplies the AI clouds
• $NVDA sits at center of compute layer by supplying the GPUs that determine how much capacity these platforms can actually bring online.
• $MU & $SKHY supply HBM required to keep those GPUs fed as model sizes and inference workloads continue scaling
• $DLR, $EQIX, $CORZ & $APLD provide physical data center infrastructure underneath the cloud layer giving AI clouds another path to scale without owning every building themselves.
Who turns that infrastructure into compute
• $CRWV, $NBIS & $IREN sit directly in middle of the stack by combining GPUs, power, networking and software into usable AI compute that customers can rent.
Who buys the compute
• $MSFT, $META & $GOOGL are unique because they are both customers and competitors by renting external capacity when internal supply is constrained while continuing to build their own
• $SHOP & $CRWD show where next leg can come from as enterprise demand broadens customer base beyond a handful of hyperscalers and AI labs.
• OpenAI & Anthropic represent AI lab customer base where demand can scale really quickly as training and inference requirements grow.