Nvidia tops S&P 500 decade winners, AI theme dominates

The past decade's S&P 500 winners largely converge on one theme: the buildout of AI infrastructure. Nvidia dominates with a return near 13,589%, far ahead of AMD's 6,099%. Other names include Micron (5,486%), Comfort Systems (5,157%), Arista Networks (3,762%), Lam Research (3,099%), Tesla (2,545%), Lumentum (2,440%), KLA Corp (2,401%), and Seagate (2,346%). These companies supply chips, equipment, networking, cooling, and storage for AI data centers, while Tesla stands out as an outlier with its return tied more to EV demand.

A significant portion of these gains occurred recently, not evenly over the decade. Nvidia's market value climbed from about $418 billion to over $4.5 trillion since the AI boom began in November 2022. Similar acceleration appears across the list as hyperscaler spending ramped up in the past two years.

Looking ahead, whether this pace persists depends on hyperscalers sustaining current construction schedules. JPMorgan analysts estimate roughly 60% of data center capacity planned for 2027 has yet to break ground, which could keep these stocks in focus through the back half of the decade.