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3 of the Top 5 Performers in the S&P 500 in the First Half Offer 1 Particular Thing for AI Customers. (Hint: It Isn't the GPU, and Nvidia Isn't Among Them.)

Could these stocks continue to climb?

3 of the Top 5 Performers in the S&P 500 in the First Half Offer 1 Particular Thing for AI Customers. (Hint: It Isn't the GPU, and Nvidia Isn't Among Them.)

Published July 8, 2026 · Category: Finance

Overview

Over the past three years, a particular type of company and product emerged as the key player in the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution: designers of logic chips to power AI tasks. And the most popular logic chip turned out to be the graphics processing unit (GPU). Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), as the world's leading designer of such chips, scored a tremendous earnings and stock performance win.

Nvidia's revenue and profit have climbed in the double- and triple-digits in recent years, reaching record levels. For example, last year, revenue soared to more than $215 billion. This is as companies involved in AI rushed to Nvidia for these powerful GPUs to run their workloads. In many cases, these tech giants needed the GPU to train models on enormous amounts of information so that they eventually could go on to solve real-world problems.

Details

The AI story is progressing, however, and though these needs continue, new needs are emerging, too. And investors are recognizing this as they choose stocks to buy. We could see this in first-half performance. Three of the top five performers in the S&P 500 offer one particular thing for AI customers. Hint: It isn't the GPU to fuel tasks like training -- and Nvidia wasn't among these first-half winners.

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Source

Originally published at www.fool.com.

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Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Data may be delayed up to 15 minutes. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.