By: Cathy Rozy

Imagine if you had invested $10k in Nvidia shares in 2005. You’d have almost $500k as of writing.

Nvidia is just one example of the sexy AI stocks driving this year's bull market. Like other stellar market performers, Nvidia has proven itself again to be disruptively innovative, financially solvent, and at least in the process of solving the scalability issue.

The S&P 500’s best performing tech stocks follow this same trajectory successfully over and over again.

However, other surprising AI stocks are getting scooped up by long-term investors because of the sustainable value they add to the AI boom.

Rather than developing the AI technology itself to do this, that, or the other, these companies help facilitate its deployment and maintain its digital infrastructure.

Here are two examples long-term investors are keeping in the wheelhouse:

Disruptive Technology: Oracle’s Alloy

Oracle now offers an Oracle Alloy service that lets any Oracle partner on the cloud become a cloud provider themselves.

This service gives governments a substantial advantage over competitors like Azure and Google Cloud, which don’t offer a sovereign cloud.

Oracle’s demand for services outweighs supply, as big-budget clients like stock exchanges and other national interest groups flock to Oracle Alloy.

These organizations need Oracle’s unrivaled sovereign cloud to underpin their deployment of AI, automation, and data storage on a large scale.

Infrastructure Builder: Dell Behind-The-Scenes

Another AI infrastructure solution provider is Dell, whose earnings are projected to double by 2027.

Like Oracle, Dell provides the underpinning technology that AI developers need to design their systems.

Also like Oracle, demand is outpacing supply.

Specifically, Dell makes AI servers that are increasingly in demand. For reference, the company said it shipped $3.1 billion worth of AI servers in Q2 this year, with a backlog of around $3.8 billion.

It seems the world can’t get these servers fast enough, which might not be sexy, but it’s undoubtedly attractive to long-term investors.

Navigating the AI Boom

With booms and bulls inevitably come busts and bears. Like failed dot com businesses before them, some AI-forward companies won’t be able to adapt to shifting market conditions. Others won’t figure out how to scale or generate sustainable revenue.

Or, as we often see in the crypto space, some may simply offer AI for the sake of AI, i.e., it’s not something we need or want AI to do.

Oracle, Dell, and other companies like them offer practical solutions for deploying and scaling AI. For this reason, they may see exponential growth in stock values for years to come. These are the more grounding, less sexy portfolio additions in the AI boom.

Better returns than the S&P 500?

AI stocks like Nvidia outperformed the S&P 500 this year. However, the Motley Fool Stock Advisor has had better returns than the S&P 500 over the past 20 years.*

Motley Fool Stock Advisor is on sale now for just $99/year, the same price as those dubiously useful newsletters. Members get two stock recommendations every month, an entry-point strategy, detailed market reports, and much more.

*Returns as of 12/18/24. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Individual investment results may vary. All investing involves the risk of loss

*$99 is an introductory price for new members only. $100 discount based on the current list price of Stock Advisor of $199/year. Membership will renew annually at the then-current list price.