Last year's market surge wasn't built on hype. New research from Alger shows that AI spending and the accompanying infrastructure buildout drove corporate earnings higher, with fundamentals doing the heavy lifting rather than investor sentiment alone.
During the fourth quarter of 2025, the largest portfolio sector weightings were Information Technology and Communication Services. The largest sector overweight was Information Technology and the largest sector underweight was Financials. The Information Technology and Utilities sectors contributed to relative performance while Health Care and Industrials were among sectors that detracted from relative performance.
Major investments in AI infrastructure have some investors worried about corporate balance sheets, but new research from Alger shows today's buildout looks nothing like the debt-fueled telecom boom of the late 1990s.
We could very well be entering an unprecedented era of U.S. domestic business spending and investment in the years to come. Here's how.
The United States is preparing for an artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure buildout that rivals the scale of World War II mobilization. Alger, a pioneer in growth-equity investing, predicts AI-related spending could reach 5.6% of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of the decade.
Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are entering a new phase that requires 100 times more computing power than traditional AI queries, according to research from Alger. Reasoning models like OpenAI's o1 and o3 break down complex problems into smaller steps and refine answers before responding, creating what Nvidia Corp.
The extent of investments already needed to build and support the AI infrastructure for today's economy may seem impressive. However, this spending may very well only be the beginning.
Back in the tail end of September, OpenAI made headlines once more when CEO Sam Altman made public an internal memo that outlined his ambitions for the company to possess 250 gigawatts of data center power capacity by 2033.
The Alger AI Enablers & Adopters ETF offers concentrated exposure to high-growth companies driving AI infrastructure and application adoption. ALAI's portfolio is heavily weighted toward large-cap leaders like NVDA, MSFT, and AMZN, resulting in a higher valuation and increased concentration risk. The ETF has outperformed the S&P 500 and peer AI ETFs since inception, with a moderate 0.55% expense ratio and a growth-oriented strategy.
Corporate adoption of artificial intelligence is extending far beyond merely employing AI as an augmented search engine. The Alger team recently broke down how different firms in the U.S. are using artificial intelligence.
Even as some of the largest tech companies have continued to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into scaling up their AI infrastructure, some investors may be skeptical about AI's practical utility and broader adoption.
On this week's episode of ETF Prime, Ben Fulton, CEO of WEBs Investments joins Nate Geraci to discuss the firm's suite of defined volatility ETFs. Later, Arthur Nowak, Client Portfolio Manager at Alger, shares the firm's high-conviction approach to investing in innovation and growth, including the Alger AI Enablers & Adopters ETF (ALAI).