Platinum Performers
Large-Cap Leaders in AI Infrastructure and Capital Investment at IT Industry Scale
Platinum Performers are “Hyperscalers", meaning they are committing substantial capital in partnership with peers who are also making investment in AI infrastructure strategic and their top priority. This means that only the handful of these companies have such capitalization that they’ve created a barrier to entry, or a moat. The US Government is stepping up spending due to industry and political support. It’s that important. This is the biggest structural change to the IT business since the commercialization of the Internet. There is no credible example of this scale of investment since that time, the 1990’s. NEA is traditionally a “proxy-hunter” looking for niche investment opportunities. But the Platinum winners force a top-down approach because of this forecasted, decades long, commitment to building infrastructure, unrivaled since the breakup of AT&T in 1984.
Alphabet Inc., Class C ( NASDAQ: GOOG )
Alphabet (Google) reported Q4 and full-year results on February 4. Quarterly revenue reached $113.8B, up 17% year-over-year, with diluted EPS of $2.82. For the full year, revenue increased 15% to $402.8B and EPS totaled 10.81. CEO Sundar Pichai attributed the growth to strong performance of Gemini 3 across their lines of business. Gemini is Google's AI agent and doubles as a truly Generative AI platform to compete with ChatGPT.
Amazon.com, Inc. ( NASDAQ: AMZN )
Amazon reported Q4 earnings and for the full year on February 5. $213.4 B a 14% Y/Y increase. Earnings for the quarter came in at $1.95/share. Annual revenue and earnings reported were $716.9B and $7.17/sh. President Andy Jassy pointed out the demand for their existing offerings, some cutting edge, including AI, chip fabrication, robotics and low earth orbit (LEO) satellites.
Microsoft Corporation ( NASDAQ: MSFT )
Micsrosoft reported FY26, Q2 earnings on January 28, $81.3 B, 17% Y/Y growth. Diluted EPS were $5.16, a 60% increase. Microsoft Cloud Revenue crossed $50B attributed to segement growth. Increasingly MSFT is labeling their legacy product offerings as 'platforms' indicating success with moving their suite of apps to SaaS subscriptions with stable recurring revenue.
Meta Platforms, Inc. ( NASDAQ: META )
Meta reported Q4 and full year earnings on January 28. Revenue of $59.9B, a 24% increase. EPS improved to $8.88. For the year, revenue came in at $201.0B (22% increase) and EPS at $23.49 down 2%. Mark Zuckerberg cited META's push into "personal superintelligence". This is very META: introduce a new brand, work out the strategy along the way.
Oracle Corporation ( NASDAQ: ORCL )
Oracle reported FY26 Q3 revenue and earnings on March 10 with both total revenue and EPS exceeding 20% Y/Y growth. Quarterly revenue came in at $17.2B, of which Cloud contributed 44%. Q3 EPS of $1.79 showed 24% growth Y/Y and above $1.70 analyts consensus estimates. ORCL noted a 63% Y/Y increase in order backlog, reaching $130B. And record level AI demand as a hyperscaler.