AI demand has quietly funneled billions to a few overlooked firms — Applied Materials (+35% YTD), Micron (+41%) and eBay (+32%) — while AI-related imports added roughly $200 billion to the U.S. trade deficit. Those gains are coming from data-center construction, memory chips and semiconductor tools, lifting revenue and profits at suppliers beyond the usual headline AI names.

Which companies are winning the quiet trade

Applied Materials and Micron have been among the market's stealth winners this year. Applied Materials (AMAT) is trading near $345.88 and is up about 35% year-to-date, while Micron Technology (MU) trades near $403 and is up roughly 41% on the year.

Applied sells the fabrication tools that chipmakers use to build advanced processors and memory. In its latest quarter the company posted $7.01 billion in revenue and beat non-GAAP EPS estimates, driven in part by record DRAM sales. DRAM revenue now makes up about 34% of Applied’s Semiconductor Systems segment, up from 27% a year earlier — a clear sign that memory expansion tied to AI workloads is hitting factory orders.

Applied Materials’ CEO Gary Dickerson said the need for higher performance and more energy-efficient chips is driving growth in leading-edge logic, high-bandwidth memory and advanced packaging, and that the company expects to grow its semiconductor equipment business over 20 percent this calendar year.

Micron’s results show the other side of the same cycle: the chips those tools help build. Micron reported non-GAAP EPS of $4.78 versus a $3.94 estimate and revenue of $13.64 billion in its latest quarter. Its GAAP gross margin widened from 38.4% to 56.0% year-over-year, and the Cloud Memory business unit generated $5.28 billion in revenue at about a 66% gross margin.

Mastheads

Key metrics at a glance:

  • Applied Materials: trading near $345.88, ~35% YTD; $7.01B revenue in the latest quarter; DRAM revenue ~34% of its Semiconductor Systems segment.
  • Micron Technology: trading near $403, ~41% YTD; $13.64B revenue in the latest quarter; Cloud Memory generated $5.28B at ~66% gross margin.

Those are substantial, high-margin, volume-led improvements that feed cash flow and lift equipment orders further down the supply chain.

Platforms and overlooked AI monetization

Not every quiet winner is a chipmaker. eBay has emerged as a different kind of AI beneficiary by embedding proprietary large language models and automation to help sellers write listings, price items and generate photos. CEO Jamie Iannone has pushed those tools to millions of users, and the stock has climbed about 32% year-to-date.

Company-reported data cited by analysts indicate roughly 10 million sellers have used eBay’s AI tools to create more than 200 million listings so far, and internal tests showed AI-driven email campaigns produced about 40% higher engagement. More listings, better targeting and higher engagement translate directly into fee revenue for the marketplace.

Independent analysis from Altimetry noted eBay’s Uniform return on assets rose from 17% to 22% last year, outpacing some larger cloud and platform peers, while current market pricing implies slower returns ahead — a potential upside if AI tools scale further.

Macro effects: trade and the data-center boom

The corporate gains are mirrored by shifts in global trade. A Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis study found AI-related products made up about 23% of U.S. imports last year, and economists link that surge to a roughly $200 billion increase in the trade deficit tied to AI supply needs.

Stanford’s AI Index shows private investment in U.S. AI last year reached about $286 billion, with more than $140 billion aimed at infrastructure and research. Building the data centers and cooling systems for those investments has driven strong demand for construction, power and cooling equipment, boosting orders for companies in those supply chains.

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A Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis study found AI-related products made up about 23% of U.S. imports last year and added roughly $200 billion to the trade deficit — a concrete sign that AI demand is reshaping both corporate earnings and global supply chains.

This article was created with AI assistance.