The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) is focusing on five themes such as AI (artificial investment), climate change, tourism, healthcare and supply chain as it widens its global investment portfolio, according to its chief executive officer Mansoor Ebrahim al-Mahmoud.

Addressing a panel session at the Qatar Economic Forum (QEF), Powered by Bloomberg, he said the sovereign wealth fund will invest in data centres, data categorisation, software applications linked to AI and chipmakers.

"We are investing and we are not stopping but winner in these sectors is still not clear for most of the investors," he said.

Stressing that AI technology is still in its infancy despite generating a lot of interest; he said some aspects are very clear as it has a business model like data centre and chips.

The QIA had announced it would anchor an investment commitment in Ardian Semiconductor, a fund established by French private equity investment company Ardian.

Semiconductor and its supply chain remain a key investment area for the QIA across all regions. Notable recent investments by the QIA in this value chain include Kokusai Electric Corporation by taking a minority stake in June 2023.

Highlighting that the QIA would continue to deploy money into China as current prices provide an attractive entry point, al-Mahmoud said: "We have an allocation for China and we are focused on consumer related industries."

The QIA is focused on five main themes and he said one of them is digitisation and AI. The other trendy investment type is related to climate, he added.

The growing middle class segment during the last cycle had led to a lot of wealth being accumulated; he said referring to the potential in the tourism sector.

On investment in infrastructure, al-Mahmoud said the needs are large as the sector is becoming important for the fact that the governments are trying to get the private sector involved for more efficiency.

Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management said it is investing $10-12bn to build 10.5 gigawatts of renewable energy for Microsoft over the next five years, Bruce Flatt, the investment firm’s chief executive officer, said.

The companies had entered into a pact this month, which is slated to contribute to Microsoft’s goal of matching all of its electricity consumption with zero-carbon energy purchases by 2030.

Lei Zhang, Founder and Chairman of Hillhouse, said it was open to investments in private credit in Asian markets.

Jenny Johnson, President and CEO of Franklin Templeton, discussed investment opportunities in regions benefiting from current economic trends.