Technology has had a remarkable start to 2026. According to Bloomberg, the Nasdaq-100 Technology Sector Index (NDXT10) delivered a total return of 23.22% in April¹, leading the broad market rally. There’s a lot driving the sector right now, but a handful of intertwined themes stand out: the largest infrastructure investment cycle in tech history, the semiconductor strength that comes with it, the AI-amplified cybersecurity tailwind, and the cloud platforms through which enterprises increasingly consume that AI.

It Starts with the Hyperscalers

Big Tech is in the middle of the most ambitious infrastructure buildout in its history. Morgan Stanley, as reported by Benzinga, projects hyperscalers — including names like Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft — to collectively spend roughly US$805 billion on AI and cloud infrastructure in 2026, rising to roughly US$1.1 trillion in 2027². The scale is unprecedented. Every major hyperscaler has lifted capex guidance multiple times over the past 18 months, each round shaped by the same underlying constraint: not enough capacity to meet enterprise AI demand.

Spending is flowing into new data centres, the power and cooling infrastructure to run them, networking gear, and racks of AI accelerators — much of it earmarked for training and inference clusters that simply didn’t exist three years ago. Capital deployment at this scale doesn’t stay inside the hyperscalers themselves. It flows through to the suppliers building the underlying infrastructure — semiconductor manufacturers, networking equipment vendors, power and cooling providers, and the equipment makers behind the chip fabs. Nowhere has that flow-through been more visible than in the chip sector itself.

The Chips That Make It Possible

Much of that capex flows through to the semiconductor industry, which is coming off its strongest year on record. The Semiconductor Industry Association reported that global chip sales reached US$791.7 billion in 2025, a 25.6% increase over 2024, and are projected to surpass US$1 trillion in 2026³. Growth on a base this large reflects a structural shift in demand rather than a cyclical bounce — driven by AI training and inference, edge computing, and the steadily rising compute intensity of modern software.

The demand isn’t evenly distributed across the chip industry. AI chips and the specialized equipment used to manufacture them have been pulling far harder than everything else, concentrating much of the growth in a relatively small group of industry leaders. And as that compute footprint expands, so does the digital surface area that has to be defended.

Cybersecurity: AI as Both Threat and Tailwind

AI is amplifying the threat landscape. The same models powering productivity gains are being weaponised — automated phishing, deepfake social engineering, and AI-generated malware are now standard tools in the threat-actor playbook. The result: every dollar of AI infrastructure spend creates more attack surface, and more reason for enterprises to spend on defending it. Enterprises are consolidating onto fewer “best-of-suite” platforms — a trend Palo Alto Networks reinforced in February 2026 with its US$25 billion acquisition of CyberArk^4,5.

Cloud: Where AI Reaches the Enterprise

If chips and data centres are the foundation of the AI build, the cloud is where it gets delivered. The big three — Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Amazon Web Services — capture most enterprise cloud spend and are the rails through which companies consume AI, whether through managed model services like Azure OpenAI, Vertex AI, and Bedrock, GPU compute, or AI-integrated software running on top. CNBC reported that all three grew faster in the most recent quarter than they have in years, with Google Cloud crossing US$20 billion in quarterly revenue⁶ and Microsoft reporting paid Copilot enterprise seats reaching over 20 million by April, up from 15 million in January⁷ — a clear sign that AI adoption is broadening beyond early pilots into everyday enterprise workflows.

Putting It Together: QQQT & QQQY

These themes don’t operate in isolation — and they’re only part of the broader story playing out across technology. Hyperscaler capex feeds the chipmakers; the chips power the cloud; the cloud expands the surface area that needs to be defended, and serves as the layer through which AI reaches the enterprise. For diversified exposure to the names at the centre of these dynamics — and the rest of the sector alongside them — Evolve offers two ways to participate.

The Evolve NASDAQ Technology Index Fund (QQQT) is designed to give investors targeted, single-ticker access to the technology backbone of the Nasdaq-100 — the platform leaders behind cloud and AI, the semis powering the AI buildout, and the cybersecurity platforms consolidating the industry. QQQT is a pure tech expression of the Nasdaq-100, focused on the companies actually classified as technology— without the consumer or communication-services names embedded in a broader Nasdaq-100 wrapper.

The Evolve NASDAQ Technology Enhanced Yield Index Fund (QQQY) holds the same underlying technology portfolio as QQQT, paired with an active covered call writing program— designed to enhance yield and help mitigate volatility. For investors who want exposure to the Nasdaq technology sector alongside an additional source of monthly income, QQQY offers both in a single ticker.

Learn more about QQQT at evolveetfs.com/product/qqqt, or visit evolveetfs.com/product/qqqy for the enhanced yield version.

 

Sources

1. Bloomberg, as at April 30, 2026.
2. Benzinga, “David Sacks Says AI Could Drive 75% Of US GDP Growth As Morgan Stanley Sees Big Tech AI Capex Surging Past $800 Billion In 2026.” May 4, 2026.
3. Semiconductor Industry Association, “Global Annual Semiconductor Sales Increase 25.6% to $791.7 Billion in 2025.” February 6, 2026.
4. Palo Alto Networks, “Palo Alto Networks Completes Acquisition of CyberArk to Secure the AI Era.” February 11, 2026.
5. Palo Alto Networks, “Palo Alto Networks Announces Agreement to Acquire CyberArk, the Identity Security Leader.” July 30, 2025.
6. CNBC, “Google cloud growth tops Microsoft and Amazon as all three beat estimates on AI demand.” April 30, 2026.
7. CNBC, “Microsoft calls for $190 billion in 2026 capital spending on soaring memory prices.” April 29, 2026.

 

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