There is plenty of discourse around artificial intelligence and the lack of exposure available through Australian stocks.
While it's true that Australia doesn't have a direct equivalent to Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) or the major US technology giants driving the AI revolution, that doesn't mean Australian investors are shut out of the opportunity.
The AI buildout requires far more than chips and software. It also requires vast amounts of data centre capacity, electricity, land, and connectivity.
For investors looking to gain exposure to the artificial intelligence boom through Australian equities, these companies offer three different ways of owning the physical infrastructure behind AI.
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Nextdc Ltd (ASX: NXT)
NEXTDC offers perhaps the most direct Australian exposure to the physical infrastructure required to power the AI boom.
The company operates high-performance data centres that house the servers, GPUs, and networking equipment. This is used by cloud providers, enterprises, and AI companies.
As AI models become more computationally intensive, demand is shifting towards high-density data centres with significantly greater power and advanced liquid-cooling capabilities.
These are areas in which NEXTDC is investing heavily.
The argument for NextDC is quite straight forward.
If the world needs dramatically more computing power to develop and run AI, it needs dramatically more data centre capacity to house that computing power.
Experts seem to agree. UBS recently placing a buy rating with a $23.45 target, implying more than an 80% upside.
Goodman Group (ASX: GMG)
Goodman Group provides a less obvious, but potentially powerful, way to gain exposure to the AI buildout.
While traditionally known as a global logistics property group, Goodman has been rapidly expanding into data centre infrastructure.
Its competitive advantage lies in controlling the land, power, and development capability needed to build large-scale facilities.
This is increasingly important because AI data centres are constrained by demand. They are also constrained by access to suitable sites, electricity, and network connectivity.
In other words, Goodman is a way to invest in the scarce physical resources that AI infrastructure needs.
It has also drawn positive attention from experts this month.
Megaport Ltd (ASX: MP1)
Megaport sits further up the AI infrastructure stack, providing the connectivity that allows data, cloud platforms, and computing resources to communicate with one another.
AI workloads are extraordinarily data intensive, requiring fast, reliable connections between data centres, cloud providers, GPUs, and end users.
Megaport operates a software-defined networking platform spanning more than 1,200 enabled data centres and 30 countries, making it a potential beneficiary as AI drives greater volumes of data across networks.
Brokers are expecting almost 40% share price growth in the next 12 months on the back of its recent earnings results.
