#Qatar Wealth Fund CEO Signals Nuanced Approach to AI Investments - Bloomberg

Qatar Wealth Fund CEO Signals Nuanced Approach to AI Investments - Bloomberg

Qatar’s wealth fund, which has made a series of high-profile bets on artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure in recent months, plans to take a more selective approach to the sector in the year ahead.

“The intersection between AI and other industries is very important,” Chief Executive Officer Mohammed Al-Sowaidi said in an interview in Davos. After five or six years of building a business, investors should be able to assess revenue potential, implementation and productivity gains, he said. “Those are the businesses we’ll back more significantly.”

“The thing we worry about in AI innovation is short-term heat,” he added, pointing to businesses that trade on momentum rather than building models that prove valuable over the long term.

Alongside regional wealth fund giants, the QIA has become a significant backer of technology firms. In December, its newly-created subsidiary Qai partnered with Brookfield Asset Management on a $20 billion venture to invest in AI infrastructure. That followed QIA’s participation in a $13 billion funding round for Silicon Valley startup Anthropic and a $3 billion data-center venture with Blue Owl Capital Inc.

QIA, which oversees an estimated $580 billion, has also backed xAI and Databricks, as well as smaller but “very fundamental” companies, including a call-center optimization firm, Al-Sowaidi said.

The fund will focus on sectors such as financial services and industrials that stand to benefit most from AI-driven productivity gains. It will also continue to invest in minerals, commodities and data centers, with further announcements expected from Qai, he said.

Qatar’s pledge — made during President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East in May — to invest an additional $500 billion in the US over the next decade is progressing as planned, Al-Sowaidi said. “There is a probability within the 10 years we actually deploy much more than the $500 billion.”

The US remains central to the fund’s strategy, he said, noting that while it accounts for about 30% of global GDP, it represents roughly 60% of the investable universe. “You cannot be a long-term investor and not have a significant exposure to the United States.”