The AI infrastructure trade has crowded into the same handful of megacaps, but the actual buildout runs through dozens of specialty names that most Wall Street desks barely touch. Power delivery from 800V racks, medium-voltage MOSFETs stepping current into GPUs, silicon photonics moving bits between processors: these are the picks-and-shovels layers, and they’re where the mispricings live. Below are three chip names with real AI or data-center exposure that are still flying under the mainstream radar heading into the back half of August.
Navitas Semiconductor (NVTS)
Navitas Semiconductor (NASDAQ:NVTS) is the purest small-cap play on the shift to 800V DC architecture inside AI data centers. The market cap sits at roughly $3.64 billion, shares closed at $13.66 on August 13, 2026, and the stock is up 91.32% year to date. Even after that run, coverage is thin: five holds against one buy and one strong buy, with an analyst target of $14.07.
The bull case is the Navitas 2.0 pivot. In Q2 2026, revenue came in at $10.5 million, up 22% sequentially, and CEO Chris Alexander told investors that "high-power markets grew more than 50% year-over-year, serving as further evidence of the building momentum in our GaN and high-voltage SiC products, especially in our focus area of AI infrastructure." Q3 guidance of $13.5 million ±$0.5 million implies 28% sequential growth, and management expects AI infrastructure to be more than one-third of total sales by year-end. Cash on the balance sheet hit $557 million with zero debt after a Q2 raise. Partnerships with NVIDIA’s MGX 800V ecosystem, GlobalFoundries for 8-inch GaN, and buffer wafer supply from TSMC give the company optionality most peers lack.
The risk is timing. Meaningful hyperscaler and XPU ramps are a mid-to-late 2027 story, and Q2 included a $203 million non-cash charge tied to earn-out share provisions. If 800V adoption slips a quarter or two, a stock trading at nearly 100 times sales will feel it.
Alpha and Omega Semiconductor (AOSL)
Alpha and Omega Semiconductor (NASDAQ:AOSL) is the cheapest way to buy an accelerating AI/server mix in the power-semi space. Market cap is roughly $1.09 billion, the stock trades at $30.62 after a rough 15.6% single-day drop on August 13, 2026, and forward earnings multiple is 8x. The Street’s target sits at $47 against just four analysts covering it.
Fiscal Q4 2026 revenue landed at $170.4 million, and non-GAAP EPS of a loss of $0.13 beat consensus of a $0.28 loss. The narrative is the segment mix. CEO Stephen Chang stated that "Advanced computing continues to be the strongest part of our business and provides clear evidence that our long-term strategy is delivering results." Guidance for the September quarter calls for advanced computing revenue up more than 40% sequentially, with AI and server revenue up more than 60% sequentially. Non-GAAP gross margin expanded to 23.7% and is guided to 24.5% ±1% for the September quarter. Medium-voltage MOSFETs into hot-swap and 48V-to-12V bus applications are the wedge into hyperscaler power supplies.
The caveat: consumer segment revenue is guided down roughly 25% sequentially, and Shanghai flooding will pinch a few million dollars in the September quarter. The company is still unprofitable on a non-GAAP basis, so patience is required.
Tower Semiconductor (TSEM)
Tower Semiconductor (NASDAQ:TSEM | TSEM Price Prediction) is a large-cap specialty foundry: market cap is $29.4 billion and shares are up 438.88% over the past year. Call it the quietly compounding specialty foundry that generalists still overlook because it doesn’t design its own chips. The Street has four buys, one hold, and a $321.32 target against a current price of $252.95.
Q2 2026 was a record across the board. Revenue of $460 million grew 24% year over year, gross profit rose 72%, operating profit rose 2.26x, and net profit rose 95%. Silicon photonics is the engine: the annualized run rate hit over $680 million in Q2 and is targeted to cross $1 billion by Q4 2026, with $1.3 billion of silicon photonics revenue already contracted for 2027. Management raised the 2028 model to $3.6 billion in revenue and $1.2 billion in net profit, and CEO Russell Ellwanger framed the Q2 result as "not a one-time achievement, but rather just an initial step towards profitability expansion and cash generation as represented in our updated 2028 model." Q3 revenue is guided to $520 million ±5%. Composite prediction sentiment sits at 63.32, bullish with low confidence.
Risks are real: forward P/E is roughly 66x, Q2 capex was $186.6 million, and the story depends on flawless execution of the Japan capacity expansion plus continued hyperscaler demand for near-package optics. Israel geopolitical risk and the GlobalFoundries patent litigation remain in the background.
What to Watch Next
The common thread is that AI capex spend is migrating deeper into the stack: from GPUs into power delivery, packaging, and optical interconnect. Navitas offers the highest-torque exposure to the 800V transition, AOSL is the cheapest optionality on server-power mix shift, and Tower is the most fundamentally derisked given its $1.3 billion in contracted 2027 silicon photonics revenue. Watch the Q3 reports, hyperscaler design-win commentary, and any change in 800V rack timelines from NVIDIA’s ecosystem partners. Those data points will determine whether these three stay under the radar or force generalist money to show up.
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