Goldman Sachs: AI remains the main line of profitability in the second quarter, and the rise of the US stock market is still supported by infrastructure spending According to BlockBeats, on August 7th, Goldman Sachs predicted that the combined capital expenditures of major cloud providers and Oracle this year may approach $800 billion, indicating that AI infrastructure construction is still in the high-intensity investment stage. For the market, this means data centers, AI servers GPU、 The demand for storage, network equipment, and power infrastructure will continue to be an important source of profit growth for technology stocks. This judgment also corresponds to the performance of this round of financial reporting season. According to LSEG IBES data, after more than three-quarters of the S&P 500 constituent stocks have announced their performance, the adjusted profit for the second quarter is expected to increase by 31.1% year-on-year, which is expected to hit the strongest growth rate since 2021. The technology sector has shown particularly outstanding performance, with expected year-on-year profit growth of approximately 72%. This explains why the US stock market was able to approach record highs again after experiencing the AI chain volatility in July. Recent market trends indicate that the market has not completely withdrawn from AI trading. The S&P 500 once hit a new high this week, and the Nasdaq also benefited from the recovery of large technology stocks and semiconductor sectors in its previous consecutive rebound. However, investors' demands for AI stories are increasing. Despite delivering strong performance, storage stocks such as SanDisk and Western Digital still fell due to guidance failing to meet high expectations, indicating that funds are starting to scrutinize the pace of profit realization more rigorously. Goldman Sachs' logic is that as long as large tech companies continue to increase their AI capital expenditures, the related industry chain will still receive orders and profit support. The expenses of cloud vendors will be transformed into the construction needs of chips, storage, servers, and data centers, and further transmitted to sub sectors such as power, heat dissipation, and optical communication. But this main line also faces a higher threshold. US bond yields, geopolitical risk, and overvaluation may still suppress risk appetite, and the greater the AI capital expenditure, the more the market will question investment returns. In other words, AI is still supporting second quarter profits, but whether stock prices can continue to rise in the future will depend more on whether companies can prove that these huge investments will ultimately be converted into revenue and cash flow.