Forget Palantir — Serious Investors Are Placing Their Bets on the AI Chokepoints Right Now

Palantir (NASDAQ:PLTR | PLTR Price Prediction) is back atop every retail watchlist, riding a 70% revenue quarter and a CEO who keeps reminding everyone he runs an “n of 1” business.

The setup carries real risk underneath the momentum.

The case against the crowded trade

Palantir trades at a trailing P/E of 229, a forward P/E of 112, and a price-to-sales ratio of 77. Those are faith-based multiples that demand flawless execution for years, even against management’s own 61% YoY revenue guide for 2026. Any cooling of the AI narrative compresses the multiple violently.

The political exposure is the part retail keeps ignoring. Palantir derives 93% of Q4 revenue from the U.S. market, with $570 million from U.S. government contracts subject to termination for convenience provisions. The April 29 Reddit spike on the “FAA $32.5 billion contract” thread is exactly the problem: every legislative cycle, every administration change, every export control debate sits on top of the bull thesis. Layer in $684 million in FY2025 stock-based compensation and a -18.95% YTD price, and the picture is a retail-crowded story stock digesting its own enthusiasm.

Watch the chokepoints instead

ASML (NASDAQ:ASML) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE:TSM) are where every AI chip on earth must physically pass through. Three reasons each.

ASML: monopoly with a backlog

1. Sole supplier of EUV lithography systems, including the High NA EXE platform. Every leading-edge die starts on an ASML tool.
2. Year-end 2025 backlog of $45.06 billion on the back of a record Q4 bookings number of $15.28 billion. Q1 2026 already delivered $10.34 billion in revenue and EPS of $8.43 at a 53.0% gross margin.
3. Capital return investors can spend: a €7.50 per share dividend for 2025, up 17% YoY, plus an active buyback program. CEO Christophe Fouquet flagged that “Demand for chips is outpacing supply” with customers accelerating 2026 capacity plans.

Taiwan Semi: the bottleneck of the AI build-out

1. 72.3% global foundry market share. NVIDIA, AMD, Apple silicon, Broadcom, and the hyperscaler ASIC wave all funnel through Taiwan Semi fabs.
2. AI demand is visible in the actual product mix: HPC at 61% of revenue, with advanced nodes (7nm and below) representing 74% of wafer revenue, 3nm at 25%, and 5nm at 36%.
3. Q1 2026 revenue reached $35.90 billion, up 35.1% YoY, with a 66.2% gross margin and 50.5% net margin. Q2 guidance points to $39.0B to $40.2B in revenue and FY2026 USD revenue growth above 30%. Reddit’s own retail crowd flagged the disconnect with a thread literally titled “Why the lack of interest in TSM and SK on this sub?”

The action

Retirement-focused capital can participate in the AI build-out through the infrastructure layer rather than the 200-times-earnings narrative trade. ASML rallied 33.86% YTD and Taiwan Semi 31.22% YTD while Palantir gave back ground. The chokepoint names offer exposure to the same AI build-out without the multiple-compression risk embedded in the crowded trade.