We’re living through a powerful technological revolution centred around artificial intelligence (AI). Unfortunately though, the major AI innovators are listed across the pond, not in FTSE indexes.
However, there are ways to invest that don’t involve taking a risk on individual AI stocks like chipmaker Nvidia and software giant Palantir. I’m specifically thinking about tech-focused investment trusts.
Here are two brimming with AI-related stocks and worth considering, in my opinion.
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One from the FTSE 100
The most obvious is Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (LSE: SMT). This FTSE 100 fund has a £11.8bn market-cap, ranking it among the largest trusts in the UK.
The share price is up 280% in 10 years.
So far, the biggest winner of the AI revolution’s been Nvidia, whose cutting-edge AI accelerators in data centres are at the heart of the action. The firm commands between 70% and 95% of the entire AI chip market!
Demonstrating its sharp foresight, Scottish Mortgage first invested £64m in Nvidia in 2016. It has been able to sell some of that at a profit of £1.2bn, while keeping a £500m+ stake.
The trust’s managers categorise AI into three levels. Hardware includes the chip designers and manufacturers, as well as the equipment providers. Infrastructure companies make it possible for businesses to access AI. And finally, there are real-world applications.
Scottish Mortgage gives investors high-quality exposure at each stage through various stocks.
| STOCKS | |
|---|---|
| Hardware | Nvidia, Taiwan Semiconductor, ASML |
| Infrastructure | Amazon Web Services, Databricks, Snowflake |
| Applications | Tesla, Aurora Innovation, Shopify, Tempus AI |
I’d be very surprised if most of these aren’t larger companies in future.
But one risk here is that the trust thinks the next generation of winners are to be found in private markets. Consequently, it has around 23% of assets in unlisted companies.
It’s had some great successes here, including SpaceX and Spotify (now public). But others, including electric vehicle battery maker Northvolt, have gone belly-up. Any more late-stage failures like Northvolt would hit the trust’s underlying value and stir uncertainty around its unlisted strategy.
Overall though, I reckon Scottish Mortgage offers high-quality, low-cost exposure to the AI boom.
One from the FTSE 250
The second FTSE investment trust I reckon’s worth considering is Polar Capital Technology Trust (LSE: PCT). This one’s from the FTSE 250, with a smaller £4.1bn market-cap.
The share price has surged 510% over 10 years.
Naturally, there’s some crossover with Scottish Mortgage’s portfolio. However, I think it’s sufficiently differentiated, with plenty of high-quality names not in the former’s portfolio, such as Microsoft (backer of ChatGPT parent OpenAI) and chip giant Broadcom, which recently become the eighth company to reach a $1trn market valuation.
It also has a large holding in Alphabet, the parent of Google and YouTube, which has its fingers in numerous high-growth pies. These range from robotaxi firm Waymo to Google Cloud.
Of course, the trust’s focused solely on technology, as the name implies. If this sector was to have a meltdown (which seems to happen every few years), then the share price would suffer.
However, as the fund’s manager Ben Rogoff points out: “We believe that AI not only represents the next general-purpose technology like steam, electricity and the internet, but… a sudden and significant leap that can render existing technologies obsolete.”
I think this one’s also worth considering for AI exposure.
