A combination of the $1 trillion infrastructure bill in the U.S. and the global need to maintain and upgrade infrastructure in developed countries while investing in new projects to support growth in emerging countries means there will be ongoing spending on infrastructure. That's great news for companies with exposure to it, and I think investors should look closely at Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB), Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) and Atkore (NYSE: ATKR) to play this theme. Here's why.

Trimble is revolutionizing how infrastructure is built

Trimble provides positioning and workflow technology that helps construction and geospatial companies with their daily operations. Its origins lie in precise positioning hardware. But its future lies in increasingly augmenting that hardware with software and services -- including advanced analytics -- to enable customers to make more-informed decisions and produce better outcomes.

With Trimble, for example, infrastructure projects can be precisely managed with a significant reduction in waste and the kind of cost overruns the industry is famous for. It's a key player in digitally transforming how infrastructure is built and maintained.

This transformation isn't just about solutions for its customers; the shift to software and services as a more significant part of its revenue mix also improves Trimble's profit margin and underlying cash-flow potential. As such, the company's mid-teens growth in its annualized recurring revenue (ARR) will drop into cash-flow generation. The company's free cash flow (FCF) generation is set to rapidly expand in the coming years, making the stock attractive.

Based on Wall Street analyst estimates, Trimble will trade at slightly less than 20 times the estimated FCF in 2025, a highly attractive multiple for a company growing ARR and FCF at a mid-teens rate.

Freeport-McMoRan and the electrification of everything

This copper miner is more of a global player in infrastructure than a U.S.-focused company. That said, the electrification of everything is a global trend, and more electrification means more demand for copper.

Infrastructure spending is a significant part of that trend. If you want electric vehicles, you must have charging networks. If you want renewable energy, you must connect it to the grid. You must have electrical networks if you want to invest in transportation, communication, or data infrastructure, and if you want smart infrastructure, you must have electricity.

It's a powerful trend likely to drive demand for copper over the long term. Freeport-McMoRan is in a good position to meet that demand thanks to its pipeline of potential expansion projects, its value-enhancing leaching technology (recovering copper from existing stockpiles), and its low-cost production in Indonesia.