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AI AND ML
Downer for doomers as conservative investor plans to lift portfolio exposure by 150 percent, and even more once it adds electrification ventures
Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek, one of the world’s largest investment houses, intends to massively increase its investment in AI over the next five years – both for its own use and across its portfolio.
Temasek holds over $400 billion in assets and around six percent of those are currently tied up in AI companies, including OpenAI.
At its annual review meeting yesterday, the fund announced it intends to increase its exposure to AI until it reaches 15 percent in 2031. Temasek said it will target five areas: energy and data centres, semiconductors, cloud services providers, foundation models, and AI applications & software infrastructure.
Temasek also sees rising demand for AI as one reason to grow its investment in infrastructure from one percent of its portfolio to five percent.
“We see compelling opportunities in ageing infrastructure and grid modernisation, renewable and nuclear energy, energy storage, and breakthrough decarbonisation technologies, underpinned by rising electrification demand and AI-driven data centre growth,” the fund said.
The fund is eating its own dog food, too, by “embedding AI into how we invest and operate, augmenting human decision-making, sharpening workflows, and enhancing productivity across the firm.”
Temasek’s decision means it’s likely to invest at least an additional $36 billion in AI outfits over five years.
Hyperscale players alone already intend to invest over $1 trillion in AI, so Temasek’s contribution won’t dominate spending. Yet the fund’s decision is notable because it exists to grow wealth for Singapore and last year achieved 10.5 percent total shareholder returns, another year of success that has seen it deliver 6.8 returns over 20 years. The firm now clearly sees increased investment as essential to keep that kind of performance going.
The intention to invest more in AI may therefore soothe investors who are nervous that the technology may not pay off.
Temasek thinks it can also steer AI so "people [are] at the centre of this transformation."
CFO and president Ms Png Chin Yee said the fund invests to accelerate adoption of AI "while keeping people at the heart of workforce upskilling.”
Temasek’s past tech investments include Alibaba, OpenAI, and Tencent. In 2016 the sovereign wealth fund helped Dell to buy storage company EMC and structured the deal to make it a lucky one, using the precepts of Chinese numerology. ®
English (US) ·