Artificial intelligence (AI)
Artificial intelligence refers to programs that learn patterns from data and generate text, images, decisions or predictions from them, instead of following rigidly programmed rules.
Explained simply
Classic software follows rules a human wrote: "If amount exceeds 1,000 euros, then approval by supervisor." AI systems, by contrast, are trained on examples and derive the rules themselves.
The current surge comes from "generative AI": models that produce text, images, code or speech. They have been broadly available since 2022 and are used by companies in customer service, analysis and development.
AI is not a single technology but a value chain: data, computing power (chips, data centres, electricity), models and applications. The investable parts are mainly the layers in between.
From the familiar world
A new employee who learns not from the manual but by reviewing thousands of old cases. Afterwards he handles new cases by the learned pattern, quickly, but with no guarantee of never being wrong.
An example
A bank has AI models pre-screen loan applications. The model was trained on millions of earlier applications and flags unusual cases for human review.
Why it matters
Alongside blockchain, AI is the second topic clients ask their advisers about. Anyone who can name the value chain (chips, data centres, models, applications) can also explain where investment opportunities and risks lie.
To pass on
„AI is software that learns from examples instead of rules. What is investable is mainly the infrastructure behind it: chips, data centres, electricity.“
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