Soaring demand for artificial intelligence (AI) stocks has driven the S&P 500‘s stunning gains of recent years. But investor interest has dulled since the beginning of 2025, reflecting fresh fears over high tech valuations and competition from China’s DeepSeek AI model.
With these concerns rumbling on, here are two alternative AI stocks I think investors should consider investigating.
Tritax Big Box
The AI revolution will require a huge ramp up in the number of data centres operating worldwide. Analysts at McKinsey & Company believe the global data centre market will grow 19%-22% between 2023 and 2030.
This is where warehouse operators like Tritax Big Box REIT (LSE:BBOX) come in. These businesses have the space to house all the hardware that make data centres tick. They are also benefitting from the e-commerce boom and post-pandemic supply chain changes.
Tritax itself last month entered the AI market by acquiring a 74-acre site in London. It plans to build “one of the largest data centres in the UK” on the land, with the potential to deliver 147 megawatts of power.
On top of this, the firm said that it had “created a further pipeline of potential data centre opportunities in key locations within the UK“.
During the last five years, this real estate investment trust (REIT) has provided an average annual return of 6.7%. I expect this to improve over the rest of the decade as interest rates fall and earnings rise. This will boost dividend growth along with the share price.
Remember, though, that Tritax shares could underperform if interest rates remain at or around current levels.
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Yellow Cake
DeepSeek’s ultra-efficient model has raised questions over whether the AI revolution will supercharge energy demand as was previously expected. This could have serious implications for companies involved in power generation like Yellow Cake (LSE:YCA), a major supplier of uranium.
Yet as things stand, power demand is still expected to soar from current levels. International Data Corporation (IDC) analysts, for instance, has tipped data centre energy consumption to more than double from 2023 to 2028.
Uranium businesses such as Yellow Cake — which has large physical holdings of uranium oxide concentrate — will likely play a vital role in powering the AI revolution. With the world switching down on oil and gas consumption, the nuclear and renewable energy sectors will have to grow rapidly to match current and future power demand.
I like Yellow Cake because — like Tritax Big Box — it could help me play the AI theme in a lower-risk way than, say, investing in semiconductor manufacturers or software developers.
In this case, even if DeepSeek sets a new standard in power consumption, or the AI sector fails to grow as rapidly as expected, global energy demand should still soar over the long term as the world’s population expands.
Since February 2020, Yellow Cake shares have provided an average annual return of 20%.
This post was originally published on Motley Fool
