Just been looking at the AI infrastructure play more closely, and honestly, there are some solid opportunities if you've got $2k to deploy right now.

Three stocks I'm actually holding are Nebius, Nvidia, and Palantir. Each one plays a different angle in this AI buildout, and together they make a pretty solid core portfolio.

Start with Nebius. Most people haven't heard of it yet, which is kind of the point. The Dutch company is basically printing money building data centers for AI. They're doing the unglamorous but essential work - providing the infrastructure hyperscalers need to train and run AI models. Their annualized revenue run rate was $1.25B last year, and they're projecting $7-9B this year. That's not a typo. They just bumped their 2026 contracted power guidance from 2.5GW to 3GW, and they acquired Tavily to add agentic search capabilities. Stock's around $100, so grab five shares and you're at 25% of your allocation.

Then there's Nvidia. Yeah, everyone knows Nvidia at this point, but the numbers are still wild. $4.6 trillion market cap and they're still growing 62% YoY. Data center revenue alone hit $51.2B last quarter. The biggest tech companies - Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta - are all committing $650B this year to AI infrastructure. That's basically a blank check for Nvidia's GPU business. This is the safest bet on the list if you ask me. Allocate 50% here, grab five shares at $135-ish per share.

Palantir's different. They're not building infrastructure, they're building the best AI software layer on top of it. Their AIP platform is pulling data from hundreds of sources and running it through LLMs to give real-time analysis to enterprises, military, and government. Revenue hit $4.475B last year, up 56% YoY, and they're guiding for $7.2B in 2026 - that's another 60% growth. Stock's at $135, so you can grab three shares with the remaining $500.

Look, the best AI plays right now aren't necessarily the sexiest names. It's about understanding the infrastructure layer, the software layer, and how they work together. These three cover all the bases. If you're looking to build a core AI position without overthinking it, this framework works.