The digital landscape has entered a period of meaningful change. AI is moving into a wide range of industries and is set to extend well beyond the traditional information economy.
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Trade CORZ with leverageThis expansion requires far more physical infrastructure than earlier waves of technology. Running AI models demands enormous computing power, which means more data centers, higher electricity use, and increasingly complex cooling systems. As a result, scaling AI is no longer just a software challenge – it depends on building out the hardware and energy capacity to support it.
Cantor analyst Brett Knoblauch is watching this trend closely, and has laid out the key points for investors to focus on.
“AI infrastructure is an attractive place to invest, given that investors are somewhat agnostic to which AI app or AI model emerges victorious. We envision a persistent supply/demand imbalance for the next 5+ years that caters to pricing remaining strong (both on GPU/hr and colocation rents). The largest companies in the world are all focusing on AI, which creates a supportive backdrop to those providing mission-critical AI infrastructure. The power bottleneck is real (we believe we are several GWs short this decade), yet we still see the market underappreciating the cash flow potential of those with access to available power,” Knoblauch opined.
The analyst went on to pick out two names in AI infrastructure as Top Picks, shares that investors should consider buying to gain exposure to the sector’s long-term growth.
That conviction is echoed across Wall Street, with the TipRanks database showing both stocks have drawn enough Buy ratings from other analysts to earn a Strong Buy consensus view.
TeraWulf (WULF)
TeraWulf, the first AI infrastructure stock we’ll look at here, lives in three vital tech fields at once: data centers, high-performance computing, and bitcoin mining. The company’s total infrastructure portfolio features 5 large-scale data center facilities it is either operating or developing – in New York State, Maryland, Kentucky, and Texas. Three of the sites were established on decommissioned industrial plots – two on the sites of coal-fired power plants and one in a repurposed industrial site – in locations that include preexisting power infrastructure.
In aggregate, TeraWulf’s five facilities boast nearly 2.8 gigawatts of total infrastructure capacity for power and data center operations. Lake Mariner, the second-largest of these facilities, with a 750-megawatt infrastructure capacity, is located in Barker, New York, and, in addition to housing leasable high-performance computing and data center assets, also hosts TeraWulf’s bitcoin mining operations. In the 4Q25 financial release, TeraWulf reported securing significant new high-performance computing contracts for Lake Mariner, totaling 440 critical IT megawatts.
This points up an important feature of TeraWulf’s operations: the company is directly profiting from the boom in AI by making AI-capable computing infrastructure available for long-term lease. TeraWulf’s facilities are based on sustainable energy production, with sufficient slack capacity to meet growing demand, and supported by solidly built, redundant fiber access and networking infrastructure. The company boasts that it maintains compliance with all local, state, and federal regulatory requirements and standards for energy production, physical facility safety, and security.
WULF shares have seen tremendous growth in recent months. Over the past year, the stock is up over 687% and has gained 69% just in 2026.
But there’s more upside on the way, according to Cantor’s Brett Knoblauch. The analyst lays out the bull case, writing, “What makes WULF our top pick is the combination of the deals that WULF has signed, as well as the attractiveness of its pipeline and how it could convert to medium-term colocation revenue. WULF has enough capacity today to meet its annual target of contracting 250-500 MW of IT load for the remainder of the decade. If WULF were to fully execute on its pipeline and lease everything out, we see upside to $72/share. This also ignores additional capacity expansion at new sites, which WULF has yet to close on. WULF has arguably the best power team in the space; thus, we believe there should be some premium to WULF given its ability to grow its pipeline with attractive sites.”
These comments support the analyst’s Overweight (i.e., Buy) rating on WULF shares, and his $30 price target points to a 54% gain in the next 12 months. (To watch Knoblauch’s track record, click here)
All 9 of the recent analyst reviews here are positive, making the Strong Buy consensus rating unanimous. The stock is priced at $19.45, and its $26.25 average target price implies a one-year upside potential of 35%. (See WULF stock forecast)
Core Scientific (CORZ)
Now we’ll look at Core Scientific. This company got its start in bitcoin mining, but in recent years has switched its operation focus to providing high-density colocation services. The company has a solid infrastructure grounding, boasting over 1,300 megawatts of contracted power that supports rapid deployment capabilities and data centers that are constructed to back up high-density, high-performance computing at scale.
Currently, Core Scientific operates nine data center facilities in seven states (Kentucky, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas, and North Dakota), and through those facilities has secured more than $10 billion in AI and high-density colocation contracts. The company backs up those contracts with large-scale HPC and AI-capable infrastructure, with application in multiple industries, from machine learning to cloud computing to financial services to government services – and plenty more.
A key point to Core Scientific’s success is that its data centers are designed from the ground up to be high density. That is, the company has built them to provide the maximum computing power in a compact footprint. Core Scientific engineers this physical substrate to provide advanced cooling services and seamless scalability for supercomputers and clustered systems, allowing them to execute complex tasks and calculations, rapid data analysis, and advanced simulations – all with both speed and efficiency.
Like TeraWulf above, Core Scientific has seen its stock make solid gains in the past year – the 12-month gain for CORZ stands at 165%. Just since the start of this year, the stock is up 28.5%.
We should note here that Core Scientific is a major partner of the AI infrastructure firm CoreWeave, and the two companies have a 12-year hosting contract valued in the billions. Last year, CoreWeave and Core Scientific attempted a merger, but that was rejected by Core Scientific’s own major shareholders in October, on grounds that the deal would have undervalued Core Scientific.
Laying out the Cantor view here, Knoblauch says of the company, “There has been no deal as good as the deal that CORZ signed with CRWV, and we suspect this is likely the greatest data center deal that has ever been signed. What separates CORZ’s deal from the rest is the fact that it does not incur capex on the build-out of the data centers… Once fully energized, CORZ will be generating an average of $860m of revenue per year over the course of the 12-year contract, with CORZ expecting average EBITDA margins of ~75%, or $1.09m per MW. This amounts to an average EBITDA of $645m per year.”
Looking ahead, Knoblauch expects to see Core Scientific continue ‘winning,’ and says of the company, “With CORZ energizing the CRWV data centers, we believe a big driver behind what will send shares higher is CORZ announcing new deals. While we have historically expected CORZ to announce its next deal with a tenant not named CRWV, we would not be surprised to see another deal with CRWV, albeit with the deal having the backing of an investment-grade counterparty, such as NVDA. NVDA and CRWV have a close relationship, with the two jointly announcing plans to build 5 GW worth of data centers. If not with CRWV, we would expect any deal that CORZ would sign to be either with a hyperscaler or backed by a hyperscaler.”
The Cantor tech expert goes on to rate Core Scientific as Overweight (i.e., Buy). He sets the price target at $29, implying that he sees a 55% gain in store for the stock.
Core Scientific has 11 recent analyst reviews on record, and all are positive – for a unanimous Strong Buy consensus rating. The stock is currently trading for $18.71, and its $26.52 average target price indicates a 42% upside potential on the one-year horizon. (See CORZ stock forecast)
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analyst. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.