- AI infrastructure spending is reshaping North American portfolios, with hyperscalers pouring record capital into data centres, compute capacity, and model training ecosystems
- Asus (OTC Pink:ASUUY) is exiting the smartphone market to redirect R&D toward AI‑driven hardware, robotics, and smart‑device ecosystems, ending its Zenfone and ROG Phone lines
- Lightspeed Commerce (TSX:LSPD) has launched Lightspeed AI, embedding conversational, agentic AI tools directly into retail and hospitality workflows to boost merchant decision‑making
- Meta (NASDAQ:META) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) are undergoing major shifts, with Meta cutting over 1,000 Reality Labs jobs to pivot toward AI wearables, while Microsoft invests over US$80 billion annually in AI infrastructure, including a record US$34.9B CapEx in Q1 FY2026
It topped our “biggest trends to watch for 2026”: Artificial intelligence is no longer a thematic add‑on in North American investment portfolios — it is the gravitational centre around which capital is now rotating. With AI infrastructure spending projected to hit US$490 billion in 2026 alone, investors are increasingly treating compute power, data centres, and model‑training capacity as core long‑term assets rather than speculative growth bets.
This surge is reshaping everything from tech valuations to sector allocation models. Hyperscalers — Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Oracle — are collectively investing hundreds of billions annually to secure compute advantage, often outpacing the capital intensity of entire traditional industries. Gartner estimates that AI‑related infrastructure spending will rise 49 per cent in 2026, adding more than US$401 billion to the category as organizations race to build out AI foundations.
For investors, these shifts create both opportunity and necessary caution: AI winners are scaling rapidly, but capital demands are extreme, competitive pressures are intensifying, and the risk of execution failure — from power grid constraints to chip shortages — remains a material portfolio consideration.
Against this backdrop, several North American‑listed companies have made pivotal moves that underscore AI’s impact on strategy, balance sheets, and future growth trajectories.
Asus exiting smartphones to go all‑in on AI hardware
In one of the most dramatic pivots of the 2026 tech cycle, Asus (OTC Pink:ASUUY) confirmed it will no longer produce new smartphones, officially ending its Zenfone and ROG Phone lineups. Chairman Jonney Shih announced that the company will “no longer add new mobile phone models in the future,” reallocating its R&D toward AI‑driven hardware and robotics.
Multiple industry sources echo this shift, noting Asus’ transition from mobile devices to commercial PCs, robotics platforms, smart glasses, and other physical AI systems. This includes leveraging growth in its AI server business, which doubled year‑over‑year — a sign that the company sees significantly higher returns in compute‑centric infrastructure than in the saturated smartphone market.
For investors, Asus’ exit mirrors industrywide pressures: low‑margin hardware markets are losing out to high‑growth AI infrastructure segments. By aligning itself with areas like robotics and physical AI devices, Asus is repositioning upstream in the AI value chain — a potentially transformative, albeit risky, business reset.
ASUS stock (2357) has lost nearly 17 per cent in Taiwan since the year began.
Lightspeed bringing agentic AI to Main Street
Lightspeed Commerce (TSX:LSPD) has introduced Lightspeed AI, a conversational intelligence layer designed to embed agentic AI directly into merchant workflows across retail, hospitality, and B2B commerce.
Unveiled earlier this month, Lightspeed AI provides business owners with natural‑language assistants capable of analyzing sales trends, answering operational questions instantly, and streamlining decisions without dashboard complexity. The company states this technology will evolve from a simple assistant into an autonomous agent, supporting tasks such as retail catalog automation, wholesale assortment planning, and eventually AI‑generated eCommerce storefronts.
Analysts view this as a democratization of data science for small and mid‑sized merchants — a capability historically reserved for enterprise retailers. For investors, Lightspeed’s integration of AI across POS, payments, and wholesale systems positions the firm as a next‑generation enabler of omnichannel commerce, expanding its addressable market while increasing customer stickiness.
Lightspeed stock (TSX:LSPD) has lost more than 25 per cent in Toronto since the year began.
Major Meta layoffs signal a serious pivot toward AI
Meta (NASDAQ:META) has entered 2026 with one of the Bay Area’s first major tech workforce reductions of the year, cutting more than 1,000 employees — primarily within Reality Labs, its metaverse‑focused division. The cuts represent roughly 10 per cent of Reality Labs’ workforce, reinforcing the company’s shift away from high‑cost VR and metaverse bets toward AI‑powered wearables and more commercially viable consumer hardware.
Reality Labs has posted over US$17.7 billion in losses in 2024, leading Meta to redeploy capital to AI‑integrated smart glasses and related platforms. This resource reallocation reflects the company’s commitment to technologies with nearer‑term revenue potential and clearer consumer adoption paths.
For investors, Meta’s restructuring highlights a broader trend: firms are divesting from long‑horizon speculative bets (like the metaverse) in favor of AI hardware and services that can scale more predictably within the next market cycle.
Meta stock (NASDAQ:META) has lost half a per cent in New York since the year began.
Microsoft’s role in a record‑breaking AI infrastructure arms race
No company better reflects AI’s cost‑intensive future than Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT). The company spent over US$80 billion on AI investments last year, and Q1 FY2026 capital expenditures alone surged to US$34.9 billion, marking one of the largest single‑quarter infrastructure investments in tech history.
Half of this CapEx went toward GPUs and CPUs to expand AI training capacity, while the remainder supported long‑duration infrastructure such as data centres and power systems — effectively building what analysts call a “planet‑scale AI factory.” Microsoft plans to double its global data centre footprint within two years and increase AI capacity by more than 80 per cent in FY2026.
This scale of spending has fueled speculation that Microsoft may require annual job reductions of 10,000 or more to offset depreciation and operating costs — though these projections remain speculative. We have about three days to see if those rumors were true, or if the leaker bought Microsoft employees some extra time if the layoffs were postponed. Still, CEO Satya Nadella has made clear that AI is the company’s core growth engine moving forward, describing Microsoft as now “riding the exponentials of model capabilities.”
For investors, this signals that Microsoft is transitioning from a software‑margin business to an AI‑infrastructure giant — akin to a digital utility powering global compute.
Microsoft stock (NASDAQ:MSFT) has gained nearly 7 per cent in New York since the year began.
AI infrastructure is the new competitive moat
North American portfolios are being reshaped by a fundamental reality: AI infrastructure is becoming as essential as energy infrastructure was in past centuries. The companies leading today’s spending boom — from Microsoft’s unprecedented CapEx to Meta’s resource reallocation, Lightspeed’s merchant‑grade AI, and Asus’ hardware pivot — provide early signals of where capital is flowing and why.
For investors, understanding these shifts is now crucial. The winners of the AI era will not simply be those building models, but those controlling the compute, devices, and platforms that make AI pervasive across daily life and enterprise workflows.
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