How Sovereign Wealth Funds Are Shaping AI And Global Growth

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Global power is no longer defined only by oil, trade routes, or military reach. A quieter shift is underway—one driven by pools of capital that sit between governments and markets. Sovereign wealth funds, once built to manage excess oil revenue, are thinking like long-range architects of the global economy.

At the center of this shift is a simple yet far-reaching idea: the fate of artificial intelligence and the future of energy are converging into a single infrastructure story, which is reshaping how countries think about economic expansion. The same systems required to support AI—data centers, high-voltage grids, advanced semiconductors, and uninterrupted electricity—are also the systems required to decarbonize economies and strengthen energy security. Two policy debates that once ran in separate lanes are merging into a single investment challenge.

For Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company, that convergence is not theoretical. It is the strategy.

At the center of that approach is Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, the fund’s long-serving chief executive, who has overseen Mubadala since its formation in 2002. In our conversation, Al Mubarak framed the fund’s mission in terms that go beyond traditional portfolio management. In his view, sovereign wealth funds are no longer just stewards of surplus capital. They are becoming builders of systems—platforms that will determine how modern economies function over decades, not quarters.

Sovereign wealth funds were originally designed to do something relatively simple: take revenue from natural resources and invest it globally to preserve value for future generations. For decades, that meant stakes in real estate, infrastructure, public equities, and private equity funds.

But the world these funds now operate in is fundamentally different.

Energy systems are being rebuilt while digital systems expand at an extraordinary pace. Electricity demand is rising not…

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