Investment Articles & Insights

Investors have long watched oil prices as a gauge of global inflation, corporate profitability, geopolitical risk, and consumer spending. When it moves sharply in one direction, it’s arguably one of the most heeded signals in the market. When it spikes, the news headlines often predict equity market turmoil. When it collapses, they are more focused on the likelihood of a global recession.

When investors think about consistent income and risk management, mortgage funds are usually not front of mind. After all, their association with residential mortgage-backed securities can deter investors who remain cautious following the US subprime crisis that triggered the GFC. Those investors should bear in mind that Australia’s far more tightly regulated market offers protection against many of the same issues.

Every technological revolution eventually runs into a physical constraint. For AI, it’s becoming clear that bandwidth and energy are the main barriers the technology needs to navigate. The enormous computing clusters used to train and run modern AI models now consume staggering amounts of electricity and generate unprecedented data traffic between chips, servers and data centres.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is driving a structural shift across the technology landscape. This transition has sparked recent fear regarding the long-term viability of traditional software vendors and their established business models. Much of this fear stems from the perceived disruptive threat of AI challengers and the falling cost of software development.