Investors are still backing AI, but priorities seem to be shifting from tech giants towards energy and infrastructure, according to BlackRock.

The asset manager’s 2026 Investment Directions report for EMEA showed now signs of slowing enthusiasm for AI investment, but after years of ballooning market share prices in big tech, attention is veering to the underlying needs that would empower AI advancements.

Investors are looking to fund energy and infrastructure projects – especially data centres – in the coming year, BlackRock found in a survey of 732 client firms.

The main message from BlackRock’s analysis is diversifying – while investors are still keen on AI, investment does not need to be concentrated to big tech moguls. Instead, investors can seek opportunities to plug further into the AI hype by looking at its supply chain – data centres, energy grid updates, and energy innovations.

In the survey, only about a fifth of respondents said that big tech companies were the most attractive AI investment opportunity.

Data centres were the most attractive to firms, cited by more than half, while 37% said infrastructure was the most compelling investment opportunity in the AI sphere.

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Construction, utilities, and engineering companies could see themselves soon  benefitting from the AI hype.

Only 7% of investors described AI investment as a bubble, with new strategies indicated that it may not burst, but rather disseminate across AI’s wide supply chain.

While AI developers and big tech may continue to tout expanding capabilities and newer models, investors seem to be looking to the physical reality of AI: its high energy demands, data centre requirements, and those associated construction needs.

“It’s increasingly important to risk-manage megacap and AI exposure while also capturing differentiated upside opportunities,” Ibrahim Kanan, BlackRock’s head of core US equity, said in the firm’s report.