What if the AI Capex slows down ?

Synopsys (with its irreplaceable EDA software), the semiconductor equipment trio (ASML, Lam Research, Applied Materials), TSMC and Micron are the most fundamentally protected: the world still needs leading-edge chips for everything else, and the equipment installed base, the EDA tool licenses, and the foundry capacity all generate revenue regardless.

The neoclouds, Intel's foundry pivot and the Bitcoin pivots, by contrast, are explicit bets on continued AI-specific capital deployment; they would be hit hardest by any pause in hyperscaler spending.