Vistra Zero

The Vistra Zero energy storage facility in Moss Landing, California, back in 2021 (Carlos Avila Gonzalez/Getty Images)

Despite DeepSeek, the AI energy trade is alive and well

The S&P 500’s top two stocks are well-known AI energy plays.

1/31/25 9:07AM

The emergence of DeepSeek’s R1 — the supposedly cheap, effective Chinese AI model that provoked a crisis of confidence in the AI trade earlier this week and hammered market darlings like Nvidia — didn’t unseat the leadership of the AI-related energy trade.

Through Thursday’s close, two companies closely associated with investor bets on surging demand for nuclear power related to AI data centers — Constellation Energy Energy and Vistra — are the top stocks in the S&P 500 for the first month of 2025.

Interestingly the nuclear-powered AI trade was huge right out of the gate this year, not to mention last year when Vistra and Constellation were the second and 10th biggest gainers in the S&P 500, respectively. But in the post-DeepSeek world, the AI story these companies are telling could come under more intense scrutiny when both management teams report results in the last week of February.

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