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Intel. The name itself once evoked an empire of transistors, a dominion over all that glowed and computed. Now? Now it’s a company many presumed had shuffled off this mortal coil, surpassed by younger, more agile competitors. Nvidia and AMD, those nimble sprites, danced rings around the aging giant. Past attempts at resurrection proved… well, let us say they lacked the requisite spark. But a curious thing has happened. Under the stewardship of Mr. Lip-Bu Tan, a man who appears to possess a most unsettlingly calm demeanor, a flicker of life has returned. He’s orchestrated a revival, a delicate re-alignment of gears and circuits, just as the demand for these artificial intelligences reaches a fever pitch. One suspects a pact with some unseen force, perhaps a benevolent spirit of the motherboard.

And now everyone’s saying you “missed your opportunity?” Please. That’s just a tactic to get you to FOMO into something. I mean, it went up a lot, sure, but the stock is still… reasonably priced? They say that like it’s a good thing. It should be ridiculously expensive if it’s this AI darling. That’s the whole point. It’s a market. Supply and demand. It’s not rocket science. But they try to make it sound complicated. Like they’re doing you a favor by explaining it.

This, naturally, leads to the question of dividends. Companies that happen to be good at extracting and processing this stuff are, predictably, quite keen to share some of the profits with their shareholders. It’s a surprisingly logical arrangement, really. A sort of delayed gratification scheme with a statistically low probability of actually seeing you through retirement. Still, it’s better than nothing. Here are three companies that, at the moment, seem reasonably determined to keep the dividend checks coming. Don’t mistake this for a recommendation, of course. Just an observation. (And a slight acknowledgment that we all have bills to pay.)

Two names rise from the swell – Palantir Technologies and AST SpaceMobile. They are darlings of this new age, kissed by the fervor of retail enthusiasm. Palantir, a shadow weaver, crafting intelligence from the vast darkness of data. AST SpaceMobile, a dreamer reaching for the heavens, promising connectivity unbound by earthly limitations. Both have soared, their valuations defying gravity, fueled by a belief in something more than mere profit. A belief in potential, in disruption, in a future reshaped.

Microsoft, a name now synonymous with the very architecture of our digital lives, rarely offers itself at a discount. It stands, an oak in a forest of saplings, its roots deep, its branches reaching for a perpetually shifting sky. The recent slight downturn, a mere tremor in its long growth, is not a failing of the tree itself, but a fleeting caprice of the wind. Revenue, in the last quarter, rose with the steady rhythm of the seasons – a 17% increase, mirrored by a 23% rise in adjusted net income. The OpenAI investment, a burgeoning shoot, contributed, though its full potential remains veiled.

The shedding of Chipotle and Hilton—stocks possessing the comforting predictability of well-worn slippers—hints at a shift in Ackman’s temperament. A move from the reliably digestible to the exhilaratingly volatile, from the predictable hum of consumer spending to the electric thrum of artificial intelligence. It is as if the man has traded his tweed jacket for a spacesuit, preparing for an ascent into the rarified atmosphere of technological speculation.

Sensible being the operative word. I’ve made a career of not being sensible. My financial advisor—a man who looks permanently disappointed in my life choices—keeps suggesting index funds. Boring, predictable index funds. But then you see something like Toast, adding 8,000 new restaurants in a quarter—30,000 for the year, totaling around 164,000—and you think, maybe a little excitement isn’t such a bad thing. They’re even expanding internationally, and apparently, into food retailers. It’s like they’re trying to be the operating system for everything edible. Which, let’s be honest, is a perfectly reasonable goal.

Behold, Applied Digital, a company that fancies itself a proprietor of purpose-built digital estates. They are, at present, transitioning from the laborious task of erecting these structures to the more agreeable one of extracting rents therefrom. Their Polaris Forge 1, a campus of considerable ambition, hath begun to yield fruit – or, rather, electricity bills. The first hundred megawatts are now operational, a milestone celebrated with, one suspects, a considerable expenditure of champagne.