잊혀진 거인들의 귀환: AI 인프라가 쏘아 올린 '올드 테크'의 화려한 부활 > K-wave Trends

The most dramatic protagonist of this infrastructure rally is undoubtedly Dell Technologies. Leading investment banks, including Morgan Stanley, withdrew their conservative investment opinions on Dell and issued an unusual statement of reflection, saying, “Our existing logic was wrong.” The key reason why Dell is being re-evaluated is not simply because of increased server sales, but because of the strong ‘supply chain procurement power’ it has built up over decades. Currently, the AI ​​server market is overflowing with demand, but it is in a state of 'supply constraints' where securing key components such as GPU and HBM first is directly related to sales. Dell is dominating the market by supplying key components one step ahead of its competitors based on its huge purchasing power and solid parts supply chain, and has now completed a structural transformation where AI server sales have surpassed PC sales, which was its previous main business.

The transformation of communications network companies such as Nokia and Cisco are also solving essential puzzles in the AI ​​era. Nokia, which was on the verge of collapse due to the decline of its mobile phone business in the past, has been reborn as a company specializing in communication equipment and optical communications through drastic improvements in its structure, and is exclusively absorbing the demand for high-speed connections between data centers through the recent acquisition of Infinera. AI data centers do not operate simply by stacking up a lot of computing chips; they must be supported by an ultra-low latency network that connects thousands of servers and racks in real time. In this trend, Nokia has established a strategic partnership with NVIDIA and is developing the 6G communication network into an AI 'neural network', establishing itself as a core infrastructure in the 'physical AI' era that goes beyond data centers and connects machines in the real world with AI.

The remaining old tech companies, including Lenovo, Intel, Micron, and Texas Instruments, are also being re-evaluated as they directly benefit from the AI boom in their respective fields. Lenovo, which had been stuck in a slump in the PC industry for a long time, diversified its sales portfolio through AI product lines and emerged as the top rising stock in the Hong Kong stock market, while Intel reemerged as a pillar of AI infrastructure through Nvidia's investment and supply of new chips. In particular, Micron, a memory powerhouse, directly benefited from the surge in demand for HBM, and its market capitalization grew rapidly to $1 trillion in a short period of time. Texas Instruments, a company in the power semiconductor field, also provides essential technology to precisely control voltage and current as the power density of data centers increases, and is attracting attention as a hidden contributor to the infrastructure rally.

But investors must also face the cold reality behind this rapid rise in stock prices. In the case of Nokia, the company's stock price soared 140% even though its AI-related sales are only 8% of the total, sparking controversy over the company's valuation. This is raising concerns that the growth potential may have been too excessively reflected in the current stock price. Server companies like Dell also face a challenge in that rapid increases in sales do not directly lead to improvements in operating profit margins. Given the AI ​​server structure with a high proportion of expensive components, how efficiently profitability is managed will be a key variable in maintaining the stock price in the future as much as the size of sales. Ultimately, the market is watching calmly to see whether these companies will go beyond simple expectations and demonstrate sustainable growth through actual improvement in profitability and customer diversification.