While mega-tech titans dominate headlines in the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence (AI), the next generation of innovation may lie in the hands of more specialized players. C3.ai (NYSE: AI) and BigBear.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been the hottest sector on Wall Street for more than two years. First up is IonQ (NYSE: IONQ). As of this writing, shares of IonQ are up more than 275% over the past 12 months.

The artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem was rocked recently by news that Chinese start-up DeepSeek had developed a cost-effective and competent large language model on the cheap. That revelation called into question the tens of billions of dollars that are being poured into the buildout of AI infrastructure,