The world's largest AI fund has surged 23% this year, beating even the red-hot Nasdaq index
- The Global X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF, the largest AI fund in the world, is up 23% so far in 2023.
- This has included $135 million of inflows so far in 2023, including $80 million in March, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The rise of ChatGPT has spurred a renewed spike in investor interest in the artificial intelligence sector. That's led the world's largest AI fund, the Global X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF (BOTZ), to a stronger start in 2023 than even the red-hot Nasdaq 100.
The $1.7 billion ETF has gained 23%, while the Nasdaq 100, coming off its second-strongest quarter in a decade, is up 19%.
The fund's top holding is Nvidia, which was the top-performing name in both the S&P 500 and more tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 during the first quarter. The chipmaker, which makes up roughly 9% of the ETF's net assets, has climbed 88% in 2023. Further, lesser-weighted fund members like C3.ai and South Korea-based Rainbow Robotics have seen their stocks soar more than 200% this year.
Amid the strong fund returns, BOTZ has seen $135 million of inflows so far in 2023, including $80 million in March, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. A new survey from Brown Brothers Harriman suggests the trend toward AI will continue.
Among 325 professional investors, 56% plan to add AI- and robotics-themed exposure to their portfolios this year, the survey found. That compares to 46% in 2022, and the category beat out all others except internet and technology.
Jan Szilagyi, the CEO of AI-powered market analytics platform Toggle AI, said he's more bullish on the sector now than even before the banking turmoil rattled financial markets in March.
Top players in finance continue to give tools like ChatGPT plenty of attention, he's encouraged by the rapid progress seen across large language models.
"For the moment, most of the technology's promise is still in the future," Szilagyi told Insider on Monday. "The leap between GPT 3.5 and GPT 4 shows that we are still early in the upgrade curve. This technology is going to see dramatic improvement in the coming years."