Chipmaker stocks tripled in the first half of 2026 amid AI-driven demand

Semiconductor and memory chip manufacturers have become the major winners of the investment season: in the first half of 2026, shares of several chip makers tripled in price, sector profits reached record levels, and stock indices of the Asia-Pacific region showed significant growth — largely thanks to this sector.

Chipmakers Set a New Pace

Investors massively switched to companies providing the hardware foundation of the AI boom: GPU manufacturers, specialized AI accelerators, and memory chips. The logic behind this choice is obvious — without these components, no major data center, no language model can operate. Demand for semiconductors is directly tied to AI infrastructure investments, and these investments continue to grow.

Technology giants around the world continue to invest tens of billions of dollars in expanding computing capacity. Each new data center, each cloud infrastructure update — is a direct order for chip manufacturers. This demand is stable, predictable, and does not depend on which specific AI companies end up as leaders: "hardware" is needed by everyone.

As a result, shares of a number of manufacturers showed growth significantly outpacing the broader market. For some companies, market capitalization increased threefold or more in the first six months of the year — a dynamic atypical even for the most technological sector.

Asian Markets in the Lead

The growth of the chip sector pulled entire stock markets with it. The Asia-Pacific region, where a significant portion of global semiconductor production is concentrated, became one of the main beneficiaries of this trend. Chip manufacturers from Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan report record profits at the end of the first half. This is reflected in local stock indices: they grew faster than many Western counterparts. International investors are increasing the share of Asian securities in their portfolios — following where AI "hardware" production is concentrated.

Software Sector Loses Priority

Against this backdrop, major companies — software developers — have lost investor favor. Shares of many of them in the first half either stagnated or declined, despite the ongoing general AI frenzy in the industry. This recalls the classic logic of a "gold rush": during a technological race, the greatest returns are often brought not by those who create the end product, but by those who supply the tools and infrastructure. In the 1990s, the internet boom primarily enriched network equipment manufacturers — and only later came the turn of online service creators. Industries and types of companies winning now:

• GPU manufacturers and specialized AI accelerators for data centers
• Companies producing high-speed HBM memory for model training
• Contract semiconductor manufacturers (foundries)
• Manufacturers of chip fabrication equipment — lithography systems and related equipment
• Suppliers of materials and components for semiconductor production

What This Means

The first half of 2026 fixed a structural shift in investment logic: money is flowing into hardware infrastructure, not software solutions running on it. As long as the AI race does not slow down — and there are no signs of this yet — chip and memory manufacturers will remain among the main beneficiaries of the era. For companies in other sectors, this is a signal: control over physical infrastructure is becoming an increasingly significant competitive advantage.