Singapore state investor Temasek targets big jump in AI investments

Singapore state investor Temasek said on Wednesday it was targeting a major increase in its investments in AI companies, aiming to lift its exposure to the technology to as much as 15% over the next five years from 6% now.

Temasek, which owns stakes in Anthropic and OpenAI, also said that its net portfolio value had climbed to S$518 billion ($400 billion) last financial year, marking the second consecutive year that it has hit a record. That represented growth of 10.5% in Singapore dollar terms or 14.8% in U.S. dollar terms.

The return compares with a 17% rise for MSCI's world stocks gauge .MIWO00000PUS, though Temasek's portfolio differs from public equity benchmarks in structure, mandate and asset mix.

Chief Executive Dilhan Pillay told a briefing that the rapid advancement of AI represented "a pivotal phase that will create vast new opportunities.

He added that Temasek intended to deploy capital across five focus areas: energy and data centres, semiconductors, cloud service providers, foundation models and AI applications and software infrastructure.

Temasek would also be looking at its entire holdings through the lens of AI, he said.

"The rubber hits the road in AI adoption," he said. "The remaining 85% of our portfolio must be focused on AI adoption for competitiveness. That is where the rest of our portfolio will see value capture."

Temasek said its results last year were helped by gains from divestments and the performance of local companies. It declined to disclose its stakes in AI companies and how that might have affected its performance.

-Reporting by Yantoultra Ngui and Rae Wee; Editing by Tom Westbrook and Edwina Gibbs/Reuters