Some investors are trying to pivot to what’s next after AI. Two sectors keep on coming up.

The AI trade is dominating markets coverage these days, but even its biggest boosters realize that nothing can last forever, and that exponential growth can only continue so long until it becomes just your standard incremental growth. So, what’s the next big thing? This week offers some clues.

Robotics certainly has the eye of the administration. Robotics stocks got a lift on Wednesday on the heels of a report from Politico that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is going “all in” to support the industry, with iRobot, Richtech Robotics, Serve Robotics, and WeRide all up on the news.

Some think it’s quantum computing. For instance, D-Wave Quantum was up big on Wednesday after Evercore ISI initiated coverage on the annealing quantum specialist with an “outperform” rating and price target of $44, implying upside of nearly 76% from where the stock closed on Wednesday.

Analyst Mark Lipacis called it a “leading play as the computing industry sees its next Tectonic Shift to a Quantum Computing Era,” highlighting three key things the firm offers: commercial revenues; a full-stack play, with services, software, and hardware; and an ample cash hoard to develop its technology.

“Each successive Tectonic Shift in Computing surprised investors with new workloads, and created stock performance of 100x-to-1,000x for full-stack ecosystem leaders,” Lipacis wrote. “To be clear, with over 40 quantum companies competing and no clear-cut leaders, we expect a shakeout, but to capture full-alpha, history shows you need to get in 10-years before the Tectonic Shift actually happens.”

The Takeaway

I know we said that these are trades for what comes after AI, but honestly, they too are part of the AI trade — just a nascent spin-off. It’s not a surprise that some of the robotics companies’ biggest fans are at the heart of the AI boom.

While the Politico report frames that robotics announcement as a shift in focus by the White House from AI toward robots, it’s really a variation on that same theme. Leading AI firms like Nvidia are positioning themselves to be heavily involved in “physical AI,” which is effectively a catch-all for the brains behind robotics and autonomous technology. This week, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son detailed how it’s not mechanical robotics that will change the world, but rather the “physical AI with embodiment into robots.”