AI shares are among the hardest things to buy on the Australian market, because the obvious names are all listed somewhere else.
For example, there is no ASX-listed Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA)
That does not mean Australian investors are locked out.
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How to buy AI shares on the ASX
There are three sensible routes.
You can own the infrastructure that artificial intelligence runs on, you can own a business using the technology to widen its own moat, or you can buy a global fund listed here.
Each carries a different risk, and the mistake most investors make is treating them as interchangeable.
The infrastructure AI shares
NextDC Ltd (ASX: NXT) is the purest local play on computing demand.
The company's FY26 result delivered net revenue of $405.0 million, up 16%, and underlying EBITDA of $248.8 million.
The number that really matters is contracted utilisation, which more than tripled to 740.1 megawatts against built capacity of just 288 megawatts.
Hyperscale and artificial intelligence workloads now account for 95% of contracted megawatts.
FY27 guidance is for revenue of $615 million to $640 million.
The risk is written into the same document.
Capital expenditure guidance for FY27 was between $5.25 billion to $5.75 billion, against a market capitalisation of $10.49 billion.
NextDC shares closed Monday at $13.23 and have fallen 19.66% over twelve months.
Goodman Group (ASX: GMG) is the larger and steadier version of the same theme.
Its FY26 operating profit rose 15.7% to $2,675 million, with operating earnings per security up 10.1% to 129.9 cents.
Data centres are now roughly $15.4 billion of work in progress, or 78% of the total.
The group controls a global power bank of 6.4 gigawatts across 16 cities, with management guiding to 9% operating earnings per security growth in FY27.
The AI shares that use the technology
Pro Medicus Ltd (ASX: PME) is not usually filed under artificial intelligence, but it probably should be.
Its Visage platform is where radiology algorithms have to run, and FY26 revenue grew 28.4% to $261.7 million on an underlying EBIT margin of 74.9%.
The company signed $407 million of new contracts across ten deals and retained 100% of renewals at higher fees.
Forward contracted revenue now stands at $1.34 billion over five years.
The stock's valuation is the primary argument against it.
Pro Medicus trades on a price-to-earnings ratio of 72 at $176.42, and the shares have still fallen 40.99% over the past year.
That fall tells you how brutally the market punishes any wobble in a stock priced this way.
The simplest option of all
Global X Artificial Intelligence ETF (ASX: GXAI) solves the geography problem in a single trade, and is the fastest way to add AI shares exposure to an Australian portfolio.
The ETF tracks the Indxx Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Index across more than 100 companies, with Palantir Technologies Inc (NASDAQ: PLTR), Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Oracle Corporation (NYSE: ORCL) among its largest weights.
The ETF's management fee is 0.57% a year, and the fund held roughly $271 million in assets as at 28 August 2026.
Foolish takeaway
I would not build a portfolio out of only one of these shares and ETFs.
NextDC gives you the cleanest exposure and carries the heaviest capital risk.
Goodman offers the same theme inside an ASX 200 business that actually pays a distribution.
Pro Medicus is the highest quality of the three and comfortably the most expensive.
For most investors, a global ETF alongside one or two local names is the best way to own AI shares while limiting downside risk.
