How is AI Infrastructure Demand Fueling CDW's Growth in 2026?

CDW Corporation CDW is benefiting from strong demand for AI infrastructure in 2026 as customers continue investing in AI readiness and modernization. In the second quarter, the company generated net sales of $6.6 billion, up 10% year over year, while gross profit increased 6% to $1.3 billion and non-GAAP earnings per share rose 12% to $2.91. AI increasingly influenced customer activity, with investments in AI readiness and modernization supporting strong infrastructure demand despite cautious and deliberate spending. AI infrastructure implementation remained most advanced among CDW’s largest customers, reflecting the typical early stages of a major technology transformation cycle.

Infrastructure modernization, cloud and AI-readiness initiatives helped CDW’s Corporate business increase net sales 11%. Across the company, healthy demand for modernization, AI readiness and resilience drove hardware revenue 10% higher, while servers, storage and netcomm posted strong double-digit growth. Software, cloud and security also delivered healthy growth as customers prioritized application modernization, AI evaluation, hybrid environment optimization and protection of increasingly advanced technology architectures.

AI is also expanding opportunities across CDW’s full-stack, full-life-cycle model. Customers are treating AI as an architectural challenge spanning on-premises, public cloud, edge and hybrid environments, while also requiring security, governance, data integration and risk management. As customers progress from experimentation and pilots to implementation and scaling, CDW is capturing opportunities across infrastructure, security, data integration and ongoing life-cycle support.

The current infrastructure investment cycle is also expected to create future services opportunities. On the last earnings call, CDW stated that large enterprise customers typically lead infrastructure investment, followed over time by services, software, security and life-cycle opportunities. Its pipeline continues to build as AI and modernization projects move from procurement into implementation. Infrastructure demand remains strong, AI-related activity continues to expand across industries and customer segments, and robust written demand, shipping activity and elevated backlog supported CDW’s decision to raise its full-year outlook.

Taking a Look at CDW’s Competitors

Avnet, Inc. AVT is benefiting from the broadening AI-driven technology cycle as demand expands from data centers into networking, industrial, automation and edge-computing applications. The company’s global distribution scale, engineering capabilities, embedded solutions and digital platforms position it to support customers requiring components, design expertise and supply-chain services across regions. In fourth-quarter fiscal 2026, all end markets delivered double-digit growth, while book-to-bill ratios stayed well above parity and lead times extended across key product categories. Management also noted that the recovery has moved beyond AI and data center demand, improving visibility into fiscal 2027 growth opportunities across multiple markets and industries.

TD SYNNEX Corporation SNX is benefiting from rising enterprise IT spending, AI-led infrastructure demand and a broader mix of cloud, security and advanced solutions. The company delivered record second-quarter fiscal 2026 results, with broad-based gains across Distribution and Hyve, while earnings per share topped consensus and management guided continued year-over-year growth for the third quarter. Hyve remains a key growth engine as hyperscaler programs expand, new programs ramp up and more U.S. capacity is added to support digital infrastructure builds. Vendor partnerships, global reach and disciplined capital returns further support the investment case.

CDW Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

Shares of CDW have gained 2.8% in the past month compared with the Computers - IT Services industry’s growth of 15.3%.

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Valuation-wise, CDW seems attractive, as suggested by the Value Score of B. CDW trades at a forward 12-month price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 11.9, below the industry’s 18.72.

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The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CDW’s earnings for 2026 has been revised marginally upward over the past 60 days.

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CDW currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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The AI revolution has already minted millionaires. But the stocks everyone knows about aren't likely to keep delivering the biggest profits. AI’s second wave is moving from infrastructure to implementation and these companies are at the forefront of this transition, positioned to become what Amazon and Google were to the internet era.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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