Most investors file Cummins (NYSE:CMI ) under diesel engines and heavy trucks. Andrew Sather argues the more important story sits in a smaller corner: the Power Systems segment.
Sather said that “even though the revenue is much, much smaller, their profit levels from Power Systems have now become the biggest segment, certainly for the latest Q2 and then also over the last 12 months.”
That ranking is Sather’s reading of Cummins’ segment reporting, covering both Q2 and the trailing 12 months. We have not independently verified it. His larger lesson stands on its own: top-line revenue can hide where a company actually earns its profit, and segment reporting is where that becomes visible.
Cummins Describes Its Own AI Tailwind
Cummins itself supports this framing. The company is capitalizing on accelerating demand for data center power generation driven by AI growth. The connection between an engine maker and artificial intelligence is built into how the business presents itself.
The expansion behind that demand goes well beyond engine makers. We covered seven suppliers driving the AI data center boom, from electricity to cooling, in a free report you can grab here: 7 Stocks Powering the AI Boom (That Aren’t Chipmakers).
Cummins operates through five segments: Engine, Components, Distribution, Driving Systems and Accelera. Power Systems covers power generation systems for data centers, industrial and mining applications, and generator technologies. The company employs approximately 67,400 people.
A Pullback Inside a Decade-Long Run
Cummins shares traded at $517.94 as of 7:30 p.m. ET on September 28, 2026, down 1.36% on the session, down 3.15% over the past week and down 8.30% over the past month.
Extend the window and the picture shifts. Shares are up 2.51% year to date, 25.70% over the past year, 151.80% over five years and 421.15% over ten years. The accurate description is a recent drop inside a strong longer-term run, which raises Sather’s question: why would the market mark down a company with a profit engine tied to AI demand?
Three Steps to Find Where Profit Actually Comes From
- Find the segment disclosures. Public companies break out segment results in quarterly reports. Cummins’ second-quarter 2026 earnings release on sec.gov includes segment tables anyone can read for free.
- Separate revenue from profit. Look at each segment’s sales and profit side by side.
- Identify what grows on both. Segments expanding revenue and profit together deserve more attention than ones growing sales alone.
Sather suggests pulling the annual report directly. The filing path costs nothing and comes straight from the company’s regulatory disclosures.
Why Sather Reaches for a Big Tech Comparison
Sather compared Cummins to Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), saying “they have their legacy businesses that everybody knows, but then there’s these really fast-growing pieces of their business that are tied to AI and cloud computing.” The analogy concerns business structure: a familiar core with a faster-growing unit inside it.
He raised a possibility: “maybe Wall Street is not discounting this part of the growth story potentially.” Treat it as a hypothesis worth researching.
Apply the Same Question to Any Stock
The method applies well. Any company with a well-known legacy business and a faster-growing unit hidden inside it can look different once revenue and profit are separated by segment. The ticker matters less than the question: where is the profit actually coming from, and is that part of the business growing?