NEW YORK, June 15 (Our New York News) — BlackRock Inc.’s iShares Semiconductor ETF was up 89% for the year to date as of June 9, Fox Business reported, underscoring how chipmakers and AI-linked data-center spending have become a standout trade in 2026.
The fund, which trades under the ticker SOXX, is sponsored by BlackRock Inc. (NYSE: BLK) and tracks the NYSE Semiconductor Index, according to BlackRock’s product page.
For investors, the rise shows how strongly the market has rewarded companies tied to the hardware side of artificial intelligence. Semiconductor shares have become a direct way to invest in the physical buildout behind AI, from processors and memory chips to the servers and data-center systems that run them.
IDC said in an April forecast that the semiconductor market would exceed $1 trillion in revenue by the end of 2026. That outlook has helped strengthen expectations for chipmakers and for exchange-traded funds that bundle them into a single investment.
On Wall Street, the appeal of a fund such as SOXX is straightforward. Instead of trying to pick one winner in a fast-moving industry, investors can buy a basket linked to the chip sector through one listed fund.
That matters in a market where a small group of semiconductor companies has drawn intense attention from both individual and institutional investors. Companies closely tied to the AI and data-center trade this year have included NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA), Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ: AMD), Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU), Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ: AVGO) and Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC).
BlackRock identifies SOXX as an index-tracking fund, which means its performance is designed to follow the semiconductor benchmark it is tied to rather than rely on active stock-picking. When the industry rises broadly, that structure can lift the fund quickly.
The same structure can also raise risk. Sector ETFs are narrower than broad-market funds and can swing more sharply because they are tied to one industry. If demand expectations weaken, or if several major chip stocks fall at the same time, a semiconductor fund can retreat just as fast as it climbed.
Still, the 2026 rally has kept semiconductors near the center of the market’s AI story. Investors have been betting that companies building and expanding data centers will keep buying large amounts of computing hardware, supporting demand across the chip supply chain.
That has made semiconductor ETFs one of the clearest market expressions of the AI buildout. Rather than focus only on software companies or model developers, investors have increasingly targeted the physical infrastructure needed to train and run AI systems.
For BlackRock, the surge in SOXX has put one of its sector funds at the center of that trade. For investors, it has offered a high-profile measure of how much confidence the market is placing on continued chip demand and on the expanding data-center footprint behind artificial intelligence.
