The AI boom is also being driven by some old-school industries
Last week, Nvidia—whose processors are a key driver of the AI wave—became the world’s first publicly traded company to hit $4 trillion in market value. That’s the equivalent of approximately 14% of the U.S.’s total nominal gross domestic product in 2024. What’s more, it took just over two years for the stock to soar from a market value of $1 trillion to that historic level.
However, while investors love Nvidia and its big-tech brethren, they may be overlooking other industries that could potentially reap the benefits of AI growth.
Case in point: The combined market value of the 80 S&P 500-listed companies across three AI-adjacent sectors—energy, materials, and utilities—stands at just $3.95 trillion (see the chart). That means if you sold every share of Nvidia and bought all of the energy, materials, and utilities stocks in the S&P 500 index, you’d still have $218 billion left over.
Market Value of Nvidia Versus 80 Energy, Materials, and Utilities Companies
Source: Bloomberg, calculations by Horizon, data as of 07/15/25. Past performance is not indicative of
future results. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security.
While these three sectors represent a small percentage of the overall S&P 500 index, they include many companies central to the AI investment theme—from energy producers generating the enormous amount of power required by AI data centers, to mining companies extracting the raw materials crucial for AI hardware manufacturers.
As investors look to assess opportunities and risks in the AI space, we believe they may want to consider two important questions:
- Does Nvidia, or any single company for that matter, offer more value and potential than three entire industries’ worth of businesses?
- Does it make sense to look beyond the marquee names making headlines when investing in future growth opportunities?