The AI trade is no longer just about the usual mega-cap winners. According to Cathie Wood, some of the biggest surprise beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence boom are companies many investors had long written off as relics of earlier tech cycles.
"These are blasts from the past," Wood said, arguing that the AI spending frenzy is now lifting a group of older infrastructure and networking names.
Old Guard Revival
Among the “bubble-era stocks” Wood highlighted were Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC), Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO), Corning Inc. (NYSE:GLW), Flex Ltd. (NASDAQ:FLEX) and Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:AKAM).
The common thread is AI infrastructure.
Intel has been trying to claw its way back into relevance through foundry ambitions and AI chips.
Cisco has increasingly positioned itself around AI networking demand.
Corning's fiber and connectivity products are benefiting from data-center buildouts. Flex has quietly emerged as a manufacturing and supply-chain player tied to AI hardware deployment.
Akamai may be the most surprising inclusion on the list. Wood noted that the company, which had spent years as a low-growth cloud and edge-computing player, recently secured a hyperscaler order. A sign that AI demand may be reaching far beyond the usual semiconductor giants.
AI Spending Broadens Out
The bigger takeaway is that the AI boom is starting to behave less like a narrow software trend, and more like a full-scale infrastructure cycle.
That matters because infrastructure cycles tend to pull in older industrial and networking players that already have manufacturing capacity, enterprise relationships, and technical expertise.
For investors, Wood's comments suggest Wall Street may be underestimating how broad the AI ripple effect could become — especially for companies many assumed had already peaked years ago.
Image: Courtesy Ark Invest
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