The AI buildout runs on silicon, and silicon has become one of the most-traded trades of 2026.
Big Tech capital expenditure on AI infrastructure is on pace to hit $800–900 billion this year, with Wall Street already pencilling in $1 trillion for 2027. Every dollar of that spend eventually lands on a chipmaker’s income statement — which is exactly why AI and semiconductor names have become some of the most actively traded stock perps on BTSE.
This guide covers the full chip-and-AI-infrastructure stack: the company that designs the architecture, the ones that manufacture and equip the fabs, the ones building custom silicon for hyperscalers, and the AI model companies whose demand drives all of it.
Each name below links to its own deep-dive with the full bull and bear case — this page is the map connecting them.
Why Trade AI & Semiconductor Stocks as Perps
Chip stocks move on events that don’t wait for Nasdaq’s opening bell: export-control headlines out of Washington, earnings from a hyperscaler thousands of miles away, an overnight IPO pop in Hong Kong.
Stock perps on BTSE let you react to any of that the moment it happens rather than the next time the market opens, with up to 50x leverage and no brokerage account required. Every position settles in USDT or another stablecoin, sitting in the same futures wallet as your crypto trades — one account, one margin pool if you choose cross-margin, covering the whole sector.
The GPU & AI Accelerator Layer
NVIDIA (NVDA-PERP) remains the center of gravity for the entire AI trade. Record quarterly revenue of $81.6B, up 85% year-over-year, with data center revenue alone up 92%. Full breakdown
AMD (AMD-PERP) is the clearest challenger in AI accelerators, with Q1 2026 data center sales up 57% and CEO Lisa Su targeting tens of billions in AI data center revenue by 2030. Full breakdown
Marvell (MRVL-PERP) designs the custom ASICs that hyperscalers use to reduce reliance on off-the-shelf GPUs — up 122% YTD, with NVIDIA itself investing $2B into the company. Full breakdown
Cerebras Systems (CBRS-PERP) builds wafer-scale AI chips positioned as one of the few credible Nvidia challengers, following the largest US tech IPO since Uber. Full breakdown
The Architecture & Custom Silicon Layer
Arm Holdings (ARM-PERP) licenses the chip architecture behind nearly every AI chip built today, collecting a royalty on each one — up 268% YTD as its newer Armv9 platform commands roughly double the royalty rate of its predecessor. Full breakdown
Broadcom (AVGO-PERP) designs the custom AI accelerators — XPUs — that hyperscalers like Google, Meta, and OpenAI use to reduce dependence on a single chip supplier, with AI revenue more than doubling year-over-year. Full breakdown
The Fab Equipment Layer
Applied Materials (AMAT-PERP) sells the deposition, etch, and packaging equipment every leading-edge chipmaker needs, regardless of who wins the AI race — record Q2 FY2026 revenue of $7.91B, with full-year equipment growth guidance raised past 30%. Full breakdown
The AI Cloud & Compute Layer
CoreWeave (CRWV-PERP) provides the GPU cloud infrastructure that AI labs rent rather than build, popping on a $21B Meta compute deal. Full breakdown
The AI Model Layer — China’s “AI Tigers”
Zhipu (ZHIPU-PERP) is the first of China’s homegrown large-language-model companies to go public, raising $558M in its Hong Kong debut. Full breakdown
MiniMax (MINIMAX-PERP) surged 109% on its own Hong Kong debut day, competing directly with Zhipu in the same China AI-model race. Full breakdown
What to Watch Across This Sector
A handful of catalysts move nearly every name on this list at once: hyperscaler capex guidance (when Meta, Google, or Microsoft raises or cuts AI spending plans, chip and cloud names react together), U.S.–China chip export policy, and quarterly earnings from NVIDIA specifically, which tends to set the tone for the rest of the sector even when a name has no direct business relationship with NVIDIA.
Because these stocks often move together on both earnings-specific and macro/geopolitical news, a portfolio concentrated across several perps in this article carries correlated risk — a single bad export-control headline can hit AMAT, ARM, AVGO, and CBRS in the same session, not just one of them.
Start Trading AI & Semiconductor Perps
Every contract above trades 24/7 on BTSE with up to 50x leverage, funded in USDT alongside your crypto positions.
Explore the full markets page or head straight to the full guide for a complete walkthrough of how stock perps work, from margin mode to your first trade.
