AI Revives Struggling Tech Sector with $1.7 Trillion Market Rally

Retro Tech Stocks Staging a Roaring Comeback

The dot-com era's stars have faded into the background, only to resurface with a vengeance in the midst of an unrelenting artificial intelligence spending boom. Dell Technologies Inc., Nokia Oyj, and Lenovo Group Ltd. are among the iconic tech names from the 1990s that have caught fire again this year, driven by soaring demand for AI infrastructure.

The rush to build out AI infrastructure has led to a frenetic rally in stocks around the world, with any sort of exposure to areas such as computer servers, storage components, networking gear, and legacy chips seeing significant gains. This latest surge has swept up the so-called "Four Horsemen" – a group considered the equivalent of the Magnificent Seven cohort during the dot-com era – including Dell, Nokia, and Lenovo, as well as other high fliers from the 1990s.

The Stocks

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These seven stocks have soared an average of 158% in 2026, adding a combined $1.7 trillion in market value. The rally has been driven by a massive under-supply in the "boring hardware space" where capacity addition has been limited in recent years, while demand is skyrocketing for everything from CPUs to networking to passive components, to storage and memory.

Dell, for example, saw its shares soar 33% on Friday, their biggest one-day gain ever, after reporting earnings that showed surging demand for its AI servers. The company's stock has been on a tear, with its market value now worth $125 billion more than its peak valuation of $148 billion in March 2000.

Lenovo Group Ltd. has also seen its shares gain 105% in May to hit a record high, with nearly 40% of its total sales now coming from AI products and services. The company's push into AI has helped it generate revenue growth of 20% over the last year.

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Nokia, which suffered back-to-back setbacks in the 2000s, has seen its shares surge more than 124% this year, making it the fourth-best performer in the Stoxx Europe 600. Cisco Systems, the maker of networking equipment, has also reinvented itself from legacy networking to AI infrastructure, with its success in the AI era seen in its robust revenue forecast for its fiscal fourth quarter.

Intel, which was all but left for dead by investors less than two years ago, has seen its shares soar 211% this year, set for their best performance on record. The company's current CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, has been lauded by Wall Street, with President Trump calling for his resignation months later, before he swiftly reversed course and ultimately secured a US government stake in the company.

Texas Instruments, which was a dominant provider in the 1990s of chips that convert real-world signals to 0s and 1s, has seen its shares surge 76% this year and are on track for their best annual performance since 2003. Micron became a member of the trillion dollar market capitalization club this month, nearly 50 years after the company was founded in the basement of a Boise, Idaho, dental office.

The AI spending boom has been a lifeline for these retro tech stocks, which have been able to capitalize on the surge in demand for AI infrastructure. As the boom continues, it's likely that these stocks will remain in the spotlight, with investors eager to see which ones will continue to ride the wave of growth.