Technology continues to underpin global economic growth, productivity and innovation.
Within this broad landscape, we see several core sectors offering attractive investment opportunities over the next few years: semiconductor equipment producers, memory, storage and hardware manufacturers, and energy companies. Each sector sits as an enabler of broader access to artificial intelligence (AI).
No industry is more critical to today’s technological progress than semiconductors. As AI workloads expand rapidly, the need for advanced chips – logic processors, high‑bandwidth memory, accelerators, and other specialised components – continues to climb. Companies that build the sophisticated equipment used to manufacture these chips play an especially important and differentiated role.
We see the strength in the semiconductor industry as driven by two persisting trends:
- Chip manufacture is becoming more complex, requiring increasingly advanced tools.
- Capital spending is rising as manufacturers invest heavily to support AI and leading‑edge production.
As AI data centers, autonomous systems and accelerated computing become mainstream, semiconductor equipment companies effectively sit at a strategic chokepoint in the supply chain –benefiting from strong demand visibility and high barriers to entry. Companies that manufacture the components inside data centers – such as networking hardware, optical solutions and server components – are positioned to benefit from the rapid build out of AI-enabled infrastructure. As hyperscalers and enterprises race to expand capacity, these foundational suppliers stand to capture demand tied to the physical growth of the data center ecosystem.
At the same time, the world is generating, storing and moving more data than ever before. AI adoption, cloud computing growth, edge devices and connected systems are putting enormous pressure on global memory and storage infrastructure. High‑bandwidth memory (HBM) has become one of the most important technologies for AI, offering the throughput required to feed modern accelerators. Beyond HBM, demand for NAND and DRAM (other memory technologies) continues to rise as cloud data centers expand, enterprise IT is refreshed and industries such as automotive and industrial automation require more storage.
Energy is another essential pillar in the technology investment landscape. Despite all the advances in computing, none of it functions without sufficient and reliable power. As compute requirements surge – especially from AI training and inference clusters – energy availability is becoming a key constraint for growth. Data centers are now among the fastest‑growing consumers of electricity worldwide. This puts energy producers and utilities in a strategically important position as they enable the power required for AI and digital infrastructure.
Over the past several years, much of the attention in technology investing has centered on the mega‑cap ‘Magnificent 7’ – understandably so given their strong performance in 2023 and 2024. However, we believe the next phase of opportunity may lie in the foundational layers of the technology stack – semiconductor equipment, memory, storage and hardware components, and energy. These segments support long‑term, durable megatrends including AI, cloud computing, electrification and digital transformation.
With high barriers to entry, strong alignment with national priorities and increasing strategic importance, these industries offer compelling competitive advantages and attractive long‑term return potential as the global economy moves into its next chapter.
