The alpha Brief: Insights on Quant Investing and the alpha Brief Portfolio (aBP)

AI infrastructure is expanding beyond chips and data centers. RTX secured major multiyear missile contracts, AMD made an $8.2 billion bet on spatial intelligence, and NextEra advanced a $22 billion energy campus built around data-center demand. Together, these developments reveal a broader industrial investment cycle spanning defense, AI compute and power, highlighting how rising demand for technology, security and electricity is driving a new wave of long-term capital invest

TSMC, NextEra, and Merck are three of the market's most misunderstood giants. Each dominates its industry, delivers strong earnings, and generates real cash flow — yet each trades under the shadow of a single narrative: Taiwan risk, utility skepticism, and Keytruda's patent cliff. The risks are real, and the market isn't wrong to price them in. The question is whether it's pricing in too much. This piece argues that these aren't broken companies they're strong ones wearing wr

I rate Talen Energy a Strong Buy since it is positioned at the intersection of surging electricity demand from AI/data centers and a constrained supply of reliable, dispatchable power.

I rate the energy company a strong buy because it directly solves the binding constraint of the AI era through its unmatched fleet of nuclear baseload generation, giving it a structural and hard to replicate advantage as electricity demand from data centers accelerates.

I believe one energy infrastructure leader is uniquely positioned to benefit as hyperscalers race to secure reliable electricity for the next wave of AI and data center growth.

I am rating Vistra Corp a Strong Buy because AI is moving from a chip shortage phase to a power shortage phase. Vistra Corp is the largest independent power producer in the United States, and it sits directly at the center of this structural shift.

Sempra is becoming one of the clearest utility beneficiaries of the AI-driven electricity buildout in the United States. As AI infrastructure expands, hyperscale data centers are consuming significantly more electricity than traditional cloud infrastructure. This is creating rising demand for transmission networks, grid modernization, and utility investment, particularly in Texas where Sempra’s Oncor business operates.

I rate PG&E Corporation(PCG) a Buy because the company is transitioning from a legacy restructuring story into a regulated utility with improving balance‑sheet strength, restored regulatory credibility and visible earnings growth.