by Jason Bodner
April 21, 2026
A single modern AI data-center consumes 80,000 American homes’ worth of electricity, and Meta is building a data-center in Louisiana needing more power than the entire city of New Orleans.
We are, quite literally, constructing a parallel electrical civilization in order to feed machines that think.
Last week, the money flows emphatically backed up the fact at AI infrastructure is no longer just a stock story. It’s a massive build-out – the largest coordinated construction project in the modern era.
Among the Magnificent 7 stocks, hyper-scalers spent roughly $443-billion on capex in 2025, up 73% from the prior year. For 2026, they forecast over $600-billion, with $450-billion aimed at AI infrastructure –namely the silicon, steel, copper, and fiber required to train and serve AI models. To fund it, they raised $108-billion in debt last year alone and are projected to tap debt markets for $1.5-trillion in the coming years. These companies used to fund everything from cash. Now, they’re borrowing big, just to keep up.
Graphs are for illustrative and discussion purposes only. Please read important disclosures at the end of this commentary.
You can’t fake a data-center or semiconductor fabrication plant into existence. Supply constraints exist: Every layer has real bottlenecks. That’s what makes it an investable theme rather than a speculation.
Any big build-out faces years, not just a few quarters, to come into full being. Here are three road-blocks:
- We are still in the building phase, not the monetization phase. Most enterprise AI deployment hasn’t happened yet. When it does, computer demand doesn’t shrink. It compounds. Training a model is expensive, but serving it to millions of users, every second forever, dwarfs training cost.
- The supply side can’t catch up. Memory is in short supply. TSMC’s advanced packaging capacity, the main bottleneck for AI chips, is sold out through 2026. High-bandwidth memory is allocated 18-months out. Power interconnect queues at major utilities stretch into 2028. When demand is infinite and supply is physically constrained, the companies in the crosshairs get paid.
- Geopolitics is accelerating, not slowing, the build. Middle East de-escalation just removed a key overhang. The U.S., EU, Japan, and Korea are pouring money into domestic chip manufacturing for national security. Don’t mistake this for a cycle. It’s a multi-decade industrial realignment.
Recent Money Flows Confirm this Trend
Actions speak louder than words, and investors act by spending money – by investing in a trend.
For most of March, investors stayed in their bunkers. On March 20, 337-stocks saw outflows versus just 42 with inflows, one of the worst sessions in recent data. Middle East tensions had everyone de-risking.
Last week, this situation flipped. In four-trading days (April 13 to 16), daily flows were 85% or more inflows, one of the highest readings in two-years. Outflows collapsed to 10 or fewer stocks per-day.
In the process, the S&P 500 is now up 12% since March 30th, and the VIX plummeted from 31 to 18.
Graphs are for illustrative and discussion purposes only. Please read important disclosures at the end of this commentary.
Here’s what matters most: This wasn’t just random buying. Of the 89-stocks with fresh inflows on April 16th, 36 were in technology. And not a single technology name saw an outflow that day.
Graphs are for illustrative and discussion purposes only. Please read important disclosures at the end of this commentary.
Picks-and-shovels – the equipment makers supplying chip factories – saw a tight cluster of inflows. To many investors, they may be obscure names, but they’re the suppliers to the suppliers. Buying them together is a tell.
Chipmakers also came in force. When buying spreads from giants down to small-caps, it’s a sector bet.
The AI factories lit up. Plus, the distributors moving the parts – the literal construction supply chain.
The pipes showed up too. (Someone has to connect the data-centers). A bonus theme would be satellites: BlackSky, Planet Labs, Spire Global and NextNav all launched on April 16.
The BMI Reversed its First Quarter Decline in April
The Big Money Index (BMI) suddenly turned up from its early April trough, but it still sits in a “middle” range of 56.7%. The longer-term thermometer isn’t warm yet, but the tank is refilling – and the BMI is calculated on a 25-day moving average, so it takes time for the tank to fill. Even if the pace holds level or sinks to half of last week’s rise, we still are weeks from genuinely bullish territory. The move has room:
Graphs are for illustrative and discussion purposes only. Please read important disclosures at the end of this commentary.
Underneath, rotation is clean. Money leaving defensive staples for technology. ETF flows confirmed the theme. ProShares Ultra Semiconductors saw inflows three-days running. Vanguard Info Technology, iShares Expanded Technology, and iShares Future AI & Technology all followed. The only ETF with outflows reflected technology bears in retreat, or even capitulation.
March didn’t break the AI infrastructure trade – it just paused due to geopolitics. Now the pause seems over and money is flooding back in systematically, across every layer. That kind of breadth is what separates durable themes from bounces.
Watch the picks and shovels names. If AEHR, Cohu, FormFactor, and Ichor keep showing up day after day, the build-out is real and accelerating.
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” – George Bernard Shaw
Companies building the AI backbone seem daring, even unreasonable. They’ve bet everything on their belief the world will bend around what they’re constructing.
And it already is.
All content above represents the opinion of Jason Bodner of Navellier & Associates, Inc.
Also In This Issue
A Look Ahead by Louis Navellier
The U.S. Navy to the Rescue…of Global Energy Supplies
Income Mail by Bryan Perry
Dissecting the Sudden Rise In REITS
Growth Mail by Gary Alexander
Growth Is Not a Dirty Word (and Neither is Wealth)
Global Mail by Ivan Martchev
Stocks Try to Fly like Icarus
Sector Spotlight by Jason Bodner
AI Infrastructure Just Surged… Here’s Why
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Jason Bodner
MARKETMAIL EDITOR FOR SECTOR SPOTLIGHT
Jason Bodner writes Sector Spotlight in the weekly Marketmail publication and has authored several white papers for the company. He is also Co-Founder of Macro Analytics for Professionals which produces proprietary equity accumulation and distribution research for its clients. Previously, Mr. Bodner served as Director of European Equity Derivatives for Cantor Fitzgerald Europe in London, then moved to the role of Head of Equity Derivatives North America for the same company in New York. He also served as S.V.P. Equity Derivatives for Jefferies, LLC. He received a B.S. in business administration in 1996, with honors, from Skidmore College as a member of the Periclean Honors Society. All content of “Sector Spotlight” represents the opinion of Jason Bodner
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