Temasek only top-200 fund naming AI in investment beliefs

Temasek is the only one of the world's 200 largest pension funds and sovereign wealth funds whose published investment beliefs explicitly mention artificial intelligence, according to Silicon Boundaries.

Global investment in AI is set to reach about $1 trillion in 2026, with more than half deployed in the US, according to Goldman Sachs. Jenny Buck, chief investment officer of the LGPS pool London CIV, said the portfolio exposure runs well past listed shares: "As you start to peel back the onion, how much exposure have you got through your real estate or your infrastructure with data centres, how much of your private credit is lending to these guys, and how much in your private equity portfolio?"

For allocators, a listed-equity emissions figure does not capture the electricity demand financed through infrastructure, real estate or private credit lines to the same companies. A mandate can therefore report declining portfolio emissions intensity while its exposure to data-centre power demand grows, which suggests the reported number understates the real one. The due-diligence question is the one Buck asks: what share of each private-markets sleeve is lending to, or leasing to, the AI build-out.

Silicon Boundaries found that just 99 of the 200 largest funds disclose investment beliefs at all. NBIM, Legal & General Investment Management, Royal London Asset Management, Railpen and CalPERS set out more detailed views in their voting and engagement policies. The note finds apparent silence on whether policy intervention is needed and how best to manage AI's carbon footprint.

In the note, Caldecott and Thomä wrote: "We believe that investors should clarify what they believe about AI and write it down, whether or not they publish it." Doing so keeps a fund's own policies consistent and explains its position to clients, limited partners or beneficiaries, they added.

Global data-centre electricity consumption stood at 485 TWh, roughly Germany's annual electricity generation. In its Key Questions on Energy and AI outlook, the IEA expects that to double to about 950 TWh by 2030.