Artificial intelligence (AI) has presented a lucrative opportunity for early investors. Nvidia has become the world’s most valuable publicly traded company thanks to its AI chips, and since that surge, investors have been looking for the next big AI stock.
Investors with $1,000 ready to allocate to assets may want to consider these two growth stocks that are at the center of the AI data center build.
Image source: Getty Images.
1. Irene
As artificial intelligence extends to the physical and agentic AI, demand for physical infrastructure soars. Last year, Global S&P predicted 50 gigawatts of demand for AI in the United States by 2030. McKinsey went even further, estimating 156 gigawatts of global demand for AI capacity by 2030.
Today’s change
(2.73%) $1.11
Current price
$41.76
Key Data Points
Daily scope
$40.95 -$43.91
52 week range
$28.93 -$76.87
Volume
41.7 million
Average flight
42.7 million
Gross margin
9.84%
This is a major bottleneck that is not easily remedied. High capital requirements, local opposition and permitting are some of the obstacles that make building data centers more difficult. However, Irene (IREN +2.73%) prepared for this moment. This is a legacy crypto miner, and this crypto infrastructure made it easier for the company to pivot to AI infrastructure when demand skyrocketed.
Proof of concept arrived when Microsoft agreed to a five-year deal worth $9.7 billion. It covers 200 megawatts of Iren’s Childress facility. Iren delivered the first 50 megawatts of that deal in August and is on track to deliver the remaining portions by the end of the year. That’s $1.94 billion in annual recurring revenue that Iren is poised to make from this site.
Iren’s contracts have become more lucrative per megawatt in recent months. It signs multi-year agreements with AI companies and laboratories to diversify its clientele. Iren plans to exit 2026 with $4 billion in annual recurring revenue.
Customers are happy to make large prepayments, which helps Iren finance most of the data center construction. Iren is negotiating deals for 2027 and 2028 capacity and has a portfolio of 5.8 gigawatts. The company’s 2-gigawatt Sweetwater facility recently reached a key milestone in baseload power security.
Iren plans to deliver the first 300 megawatts of its Sweetwater facility by the fourth quarter of 2027. Under Microsoft’s terms of $9.7 million per megawatt per year, Iren could get $2.91 billion per year from the 300-megawatt portion of the site. However, the cost of megawatts has increased significantly. Iren now receives more than $20 million a year for just one megawatt. At that rate, an additional 300 megawatts of capacity would generate $6 billion per year.
If the value of a megawatt continues to rise, if Iren brings its sites online in a timely manner, and if the company expands its pipeline by several gigawatts, it can become the centerpiece of AI development.
2. Microns
If an investment in Iren requires several years of visibility, Micron (UM -2.05%) is currently giving undeniable results. Its memory chips have become fundamental to artificial intelligence, and despite a near-quadrupling since the start of the year, Micron remains one of the most undervalued stocks in the entire market.
Today’s change
(-2.05%) $-10:50 p.m.
Current price
$1,074.89
Key Data Points
Daily scope
$1072.01 -$1108.00
52 week range
$179.61 -$1255.00
Volume
27.3 million
Average flight
33.8 million
Gross margin
85.86%
Dividend yield
0.05%
Micron might actually have the best chance of toppling Nvidia in terms of market cap, despite the gap between $1.2 trillion and $5.5 trillion. Micron reported revenue of $54.2 billion in its fourth quarter of fiscal 2026. Not only was that a 479% year-over-year improvement, but it was also a 30.8% sequential jump that crushed forecasts.
Micron has higher net profit margins than Nvidia and earns more than half of what Nvidia earns. If Micron continues to grow at a faster rate than Nvidia, it will have a real opportunity to close the revenue gap and become the most valuable publicly traded company in the world.
It only trades at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 7 and a PEG ratio of 0.16, so there’s plenty of room for the growth stock to grow. Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra told investors to expect “an even stronger fiscal 2027,” and the company has entered into multi-year strategic customer agreements that make revenue more sustainable and predictable.
Memory chips are essential for every data center and Micron has established itself as the leader. The tightening supply of memory chips should keep prices high, especially as the tech giants can’t seem to get enough of them.
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