Qatar Investment Authority’s Mohammed Al-Sowaidi Warns Against “Short-Term Heat” In Artificial Intelligence Innovation

Qatar's wealth fund is reportedly adopting a more discerning stance on artificial intelligence (AI) investments, despite recently closing several major deals in the sector. 

Mohammed Al-Sowaidi, CEO of Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the country’s sovereign wealth fund, outlined its evolving strategy in an interview with Bloomberg at this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, during which he emphasized the need to focus on companies that demonstrate tangible business results rather than trading on market hype. "The thing we worry about in AI innovation is short-term heat," he said.

Al-Sowaidi's comments come on the heels of QIA launching in December last year a subsidiary called Qai, a national investment platform focused on AI and data infrastructure. Qai had gone on to announce a US$20 billion joint venture with global alternative asset manager Brookfield Asset Management, which will be focused on investments in AI infrastructure in Qatar as well as select international markets. 

Earlier, QIA had also participated in a $13 billion funding round for Silicon Valley-based AI research and model-development company, Anthropic, and committed $3 billion to a data center project with Blue Owl Capital Inc., a US alternative asset manager specializing in private credit and real assets. 

Managing roughly $580 billion in assets, the sovereign wealth fund has also invested in xAI, the artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk, and Databricks, a provider of data analytics and AI software.

Going forward, the Bloomberg report noted that QIA plans to concentrate on sectors positioned to benefit most from AI-driven productivity improvements, with financial services and industrials serving as some of the key focus areas. 

Pictured in the lead image is Mohammed Al-Sowaidi, CEO of Qatar Investment Authority. Image via Qatar Economic Forum/YouTube.