Nasdaq Q1 2026 Growth Driven by AI Spending and Infrastructure Modernization

Key factors behind Nasdaq’s record Q1 2026 growth—especially AI spending and capital expenditures

Nasdaq characterized Q1 2026 as “one of the strongest starts to a year” and reported the highest Q1 organic growth since 2021 alongside its highest ever quarterly revenue growth in the Financial Technology division.¹ The company’s headline results and the explanation of demand drivers indicate that growth was broad-based, with AI-related adoption acting as a recurring catalyst—while capital expenditures and investment intensity show up more indirectly through infrastructure modernization, cloud/AI platform build-out, and ongoing AI investments rather than through explicit Q1 capex line items in the excerpts provided.

1) AI spending is translating into customer demand (AI as a purchase driver, not just a narrative)

Nasdaq directly links its performance to customers accelerating their “AI journey” and to the resulting commercial traction.² More specifically, management states there is continued capital deployment in AI and that investment in AI is driving economic activity via large-scale data center and infrastructure build-out.¹ In Nasdaq’s business context, this shows up in two ways:

• Financial Technology demand is being pulled by “cloud, AI” capabilities. Nasdaq highlighted that Financial Technology delivered record revenue growth of 18% and emphasized strong engagement across the platform.³⁴ Management also attributes the AI-enabled software/platform momentum to cloud and AI capabilities at major clients (e.g., AxiomSL renewal/expansion driven by cloud and AI-enabled regulatory solutions).⁵⁶
• AI-enabled workflow usage is measurable inside customer bases. In Corporate Solutions, 74% of IR Insight users and 51% of Boardvantage users are leveraging Nasdaq AI solutions.⁵ For Financial Crime Management, Nasdaq states its Agentic-AI workforce is deployed by more than 500 clients (up 40% since Investor Day).⁷ These figures strongly suggest AI features are driving adoption, which then supports bookings and revenue growth.

Net effect on growth metrics: Nasdaq reported net revenue of $1.4 billion (up 13% YoY) and solutions revenue of $1.1 billion (up 14%).³ It also recorded operating income of $799 million (up 17%) and diluted EPS up 21%.⁸³

2) Bookings and “land-and-expand” traction—AI-enabled products are part of the expansion loop

Management repeatedly framed growth as coming from client engagement and expansion, not one-off volume effects.

• Nasdaq’s One Nasdaq execution included 64 new clients plus cross-sell and upsells during the quarter.⁵
• Financial Technology showed very strong ACV bookings growth of more than 50% and a sustained land-and-expand motion, with cloud-based solutions accounting for 80% of ACV bookings.⁵
• Nasdaq also said its automation and AI investments are aimed at accelerating delivery of client capabilities (i.e., improving speed, quality, and product iteration cycles).⁹

These themes align with why AI matters economically: when customers adopt AI functionality inside regulated workflows (risk, compliance, surveillance, regulatory reporting, data/analytics), that tends to increase switching costs, deepen deployments, and expand spend.

Concrete AI-enabled examples in the excerpt:

• Nasdaq completed a “significant renewal and expansion” of AxiomSL driven by its ability to deliver cloud and AI-enabled regulatory solutions.⁵
• Management cited strong interest in AxiomSL AI solutions including Reg-Copilot, REG Simplify, RegNavigator, and REG Investigator, plus AI tools in surveillance like a calibration copilot.⁶
• In Financial Crime Management, Nasdaq described an Agentic-AI-driven platform evolution and adoption, and it planned a new generative AI-enabled drug trafficking analytic later in 2026.⁷

3) AI-linked data monetization and bookings: “AI-ready” data expanded into large asset bases

Nasdaq’s growth was not limited to software interfaces; it also emphasized AI strategy enabled by data.

• Nasdaq integrated its data with Databricks to broaden access to eVestment’s institutional investor data.⁵
• Management states that the “investment AI-ready data” has been adopted by institutional investors/asset managers with over $9 trillion in assets under management and helped drive a 29% year-over-year increase in Q1 bookings.⁵
• In Workflow and Insights, Nasdaq stated revenue growth was driven primarily by analytics and that analytics businesses benefited from strong demand “to power AI.”⁴

This matters for your question because it ties AI spending to Nasdaq’s revenue mechanics: customers spending on AI increasingly need compliant, high-quality market/investment datasets—and Nasdaq’s data stack is positioned as an “AI-ready” supply.

4) Capital expenditures / infrastructure modernization: the connection is investment in “infrastructure modernization,” cloud, and AI enablement

The excerpts do not provide a standalone capex number for Q1 2026, but they do give a clear chain of statements connecting AI-driven spending and infrastructure build-out to demand for modernization-related products and to Nasdaq’s own investment posture:

• Management says clients are moving forward with investments in the modernization of their core infrastructure.¹
• For Financial Technology, management describes client transition to cloud, and cloud-based solutions accounted for 80% of ACV bookings in the quarter.⁵ This indicates that customer spending is reallocating into cloud/modern platforms, which generally requires vendor platform build-out (often involving capital allocation even if not labeled as capex in the excerpt).
• For regulatory technology, Nasdaq explicitly cites industry trends including “sustained investment in infrastructure modernization”.⁷
• On Nasdaq’s own internal AI investment, management discusses an internal program aiming for $100 million of expense efficiencies by the end of 2027, noting that “the majority” will show up in 2027 because Nasdaq is also making investments in AI to achieve those efficiencies.⁹

Interpretation (grounded in the excerpts, not speculative capex math): the record growth is being supported by a market environment where AI spending is accelerating data center/infrastructure build-out (macro), which in turn encourages customers to buy modernization, cloud migration, and AI-enabled regulatory/risk/compliance solutions—areas where Nasdaq has recurring revenue and expansion opportunities.

5) Additional growth contributors that interact with AI spending (not purely AI)

While AI is a major thread, Nasdaq’s record growth is also supported by other factors in the quarter that reinforce revenues alongside AI adoption:

• Improving IPO environment and issuer engagement supported capital access platforms (e.g., 15 new operating companies raising over $5 billion, including 7 of the top 10 IPOs).⁸
• For Data and listings specifically, Nasdaq attributes growth to upsells and pricing.³
• Index franchise performance includes product innovation-driven inflows (e.g., $6 billion of net inflows in the quarter and average AUM up to $877 billion, plus 46% of inflows driven by product launches over the last 5 years).¹⁰
• In Workflow and Insights, Nasdaq cites strong analytics performance due to network effects and volatile-market demand.⁵¹¹⁴

These non-AI drivers likely contributed to keeping overall demand resilient while AI-driven investments fueled deeper adoption in FinTech and corporate workflows.

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Bottom line

Nasdaq’s record Q1 2026 growth is best explained by AI-driven customer adoption and expansion across Nasdaq’s platform, supported by measurable usage (e.g., Agentic-AI workforce deployed to 500+ clients; AI solution adoption percentages in corporate products; AI-ready data adopted by institutions with $9T+ AUM) and by cloud/AI-enabled regulatory and workflow modernization deals.⁵⁷⁴ The infrastructure modernization and data center build-out referenced by management connect AI spending to increased demand for platforms that help customers operationalize AI and modernize core systems, while Nasdaq’s own ongoing AI investments underpin the efficiency and automation improvements that support its growth model.¹⁹

(The excerpts provided don’t include a Q1 2026 capex amount, so the analysis of capital expenditures is necessarily based on management’s described infrastructure modernization and AI investment posture rather than a capex line item.)