THE 12 STEPS POWERING THE AI INFERENCE BOOM 1. $ASML designs and manufactures advanced photolithography machines essential for next-gen chips -- enabling $TSM to fabricate the AI accelerators driving the global inference buildout. 2. $ARM licenses low-power, high-efficiency architectures that are becoming critical for inference at the edge, in mobile AI devices, and in energy-constrained environments. 3. $NVDA dominates the inference stack with its cutting-edge GPUs, CUDA, and NVLink -- while $AMD MI300 GPUs challenge for inference share in both cloud and enterprise markets. 4. $MU delivers high-bandwidth DRAM & NAND solutions -- essential for inference workloads requiring rapid memory access and low latency across AI data centers. 5. $AVGO powers AI-scale networking and interconnect -- while $MRVL and $ALAB drive ultra-low latency, high-throughput data movement between inference processors and memory pools, a critical bottleneck as inference scales. 6. $AMZN, $MSFT, $GOOGL, $NBIS, $DOCN are racing to offer inference-optimized cloud infrastructure -- with dedicated inference instances, accelerators, and pricing models reshaping cloud AI economics. 7. $IBM is building enterprise AI platforms (watsonx) designed to deploy, govern, and scale LLM inference across regulated industries -- with a strong play in AI trust, security, and explainability. 8. $BOX enables secure, compliant storage and retrieval of enterprise data -- a critical layer for RAG-based inference workflows and AI agent knowledge pipelines. 9. $PLTR is evolving into the AI operating layer -- where enterprise data meets inference pipelines to drive mission-critical outcomes in defense, healthcare, and beyond. 10. $CRM and $NOW are embedding inference deeply into enterprise software -- automating decision-making, optimizing customer engagement, and streamlining IT workflows in real time. 11. $DELL is emerging as a key on-premise AI inference infrastructure provider -- delivering AI-optimized servers, storage, and edge appliances for enterprises building sovereign and hybrid AI stacks. 12. $CRWD, $ZS, $PANW, $RBRK are securing the AI inference stack -- protecting data pipelines, model endpoints, and AI-driven decision processes from emerging cyber threats.