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The AI stock rally has widened beyond NVIDIA and Micron as investors move into companies tied to storage, memory, and data center hardware. Western Digital and Seagate Technology have outperformed both NVIDIA and Micron since ChatGPT launched in November 2022, according to Yahoo Finance data.
The move reflects a broader market shift. Investors are now tracking the physical needs of AI systems, including storage, memory, networking equipment, optical gear, foundry capacity, and older chip supply.
Western Digital and Seagate have become key names in the AI hardware trade. Their rally gained speed in April 2025, around the same time Micron and the broader memory group started to recover from the post-Liberation Day lows.
The shift does not mean storage has replaced GPUs as the center of AI demand. Instead, AI data centers now need more hardware across the full supply chain. As a result, storage and memory have become scarce trades.
Additionally, investors have moved into other chip-related names. Intel has gained about 200% since its March 30 low and recently reached its fourth straight intraday record high after a report said Apple and Intel reached a preliminary chipmaking deal.
Micron has also climbed about 130% since the March 30 low and has added around $470 billion in market value during that period. AMD and SanDisk have also posted triple-digit gains, while Lumentum has extended a 13-month winning streak.
NVIDIA remains the largest AI hardware winner by size. The company has added more than $1 trillion in market value since the March 30 low alone. However, the performance race has expanded beyond the early AI leaders.
The market is now paying more attention to companies that can help ease AI infrastructure bottlenecks. These include firms linked to storage drives, memory chips, networking parts, and chip manufacturing capacity.
Moreover, this broader rally reached the main US indexes on Friday. The S&P 500 and NASDAQ closed at record highs, supported by gains in NVIDIA, SanDisk, Micron, and other AI-related stocks.
NVIDIA rose 1.8%, while Micron Technology and SanDisk each gained more than 15%. The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index also jumped, taking its second-quarter gain to 55%.
The S&P 500 rose 0.84% to close at 7,398.93 points. The NASDAQ gained 1.71% to finish at 26,247.08 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.02% to end at 49,609.16 points.
The S&P 500 technology index gained 2.7%, while the utilities sector fell 0.9%. In addition, the S&P 500 and NASDAQ posted their sixth straight weekly gains, their longest weekly winning streak since October 2024.
Labor data also supported the rally. US employment rose more than expected in April, while the unemployment rate stayed at 4.3%. Traders now expect the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates in the 3.50% to 3.75% range through year-end.
“This is an economy that seems hard to wreck,” Rob Williams, chief investment strategist at Sage Advisory Services, said. He added, “It’s the productivity story, the spending, the consumer wealth effect and the earnings.”
Corporate results also supported the market. First-quarter S&P 500 earnings are on track to rise almost 29% from a year earlier, according to LSEG I/B/E/S. Of the 440 S&P 500 companies that have reported, 83% topped earnings estimates.
However, several stocks fell after weak updates. Cloudflare dropped 24% after announcing plans to cut about 20% of its workforce and forecasting second-quarter revenue slightly below Wall Street estimates.
Furthermore, Trade Desk fell 1.8% after issuing a weak revenue forecast. CoreWeave dropped 11.4% after raising the lower end of its annual capital spending forecast due to higher component costs. Expedia declined 9% after saying the Middle East conflict was hurting demand.
Oil also remained in focus. Brent crude rose above $100 a barrel as hopes faded for a quick settlement in the Middle East and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Despite those concerns, AI demand and earnings growth kept major indexes near record levels.
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