From Vision to Value: Our Long-Term Investment Themes

Summary

• Five inter-related megatrends influence the economy & markets: The New Consumer, Productive Competition, Securing Strategic Resources, Shifting Demographics, & The Fourth Industrial Revolution.
• The Fourth Industrial Revolution breaks boundaries between physical, digital, & biological worlds.
• Data generation reaches 350 billion gigabytes daily, creating demand for enhanced computing & security.
• Quantum computers can solve problems in 200 seconds that current supercomputers would take 10,000 years to compute.
• The U.S. possesses 10 times more data centers than any other country.
• AI models like ChatGPT were trained on approximately 570 GB of data.
• 42% of enterprise-scale businesses worldwide have actively deployed AI.
• The estimated cybersecurity addressable market size is $1.5 to $2 trillion.
• Smart World applications include predictive maintenance, augmented reality for technicians, health monitoring, & precision forecasting.
• Approximately 50% of current work activities are technically automatable by adapting current technologies.
• Robot use in the automotive industry improved productivity by 80%.
• Generative AI can improve worker performance by 40% by automating manual tasks.
• Global population will reach 8.1 billion today & 9.6 billion by 2050, requiring 60% more food.
• Agricultural water consumption is projected to increase by 19%.
• The majority of arable land is concentrated in Oceania & the Americas, while the majority of the population lives in Asia.
• 24% of total ice-free land is not farmed due to inherent soil problems & man-induced issues.
• Fossil fuels will remain dominant, but the share of renewables in electricity production will continue to increase.
• Estimated data center consumption as a percentage of total U.S. electricity generation will triple by 2030.
• The average age of the regional U.S. power grid will require $19 trillion to $26 trillion in spending worldwide by 2050.
• Estimated annual electricity demand growth through 2030 is 2.4%.
• Innovation areas for energy include hydrogen, nuclear, wind, solar, carbon capture, & batteries.
• The U.S. Geological Survey identified 50 mineral commodities critical to the economy & national security.
• The U.S. relies solely on imports for 12 of the 50 critical minerals & is more than 50% reliant for the majority.
• Steel & aluminum are being replaced in some areas with lighter & stronger composites for smartphones, electronics, automobiles, & airplanes.
• Over $1.5 trillion in announced U.S. manufacturing investments have occurred since 2021.
• 29% of U.S. firms are actively reshoring sourcing or production.
• 96% of CEOs are evaluating or implementing reshoring initiatives.
• 35% of firms are shifting sourcing away from China.
• 1.6 billion people worldwide will be 65 & older by 2050.
• The number of people aged 80 or over will triple.
• Robot-assisted procedures accounted for 15% of all general surgeries in 2022, up from 1.8% in 2012.
• 38% to 75% of patients do not respond to drug treatments for many common diseases.
• The global middle class amounts to 3.75 billion people & is expected to increase by over 1.0 billion by 2030.
• India, China, Rest of Asia, Africa & Middle East, Central & South America, & North America contribute to middle-class growth.
• Millennials were born between 1981 & 1996.
• Millennials' share of homebuyers was 29% over the last five years.
• The average age of first-time home buyers increased over the last five years.
• Baby boomers hold $90 trillion in net worth, a substantial portion of which millennials stand to inherit.
• 89% of millennials want to own a home.
• E-commerce sales accounted for close to 16% of total U.S. retail sales in 2022.
• 79% of consumers shop online at least once a month.
• 80% of shoppers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions.
• There are more than 2,000 commercial drone deliveries every day worldwide.
• 76% of all consumers would rather spend money on experiences than on material items.
• The global wellness market is estimated to be more than $2 trillion with annual growth of 5% to 10%.
• One-third of pet-owning Americans have a social media account for their pets.
• Two out of three people worldwide are on social media platforms.
• The average time individuals spend on the internet per day is 397 minutes.
• Roughly 41% of Americans say none of their purchases in a typical week are paid for using cash.
• More than half of global central banks are exploring the creation of digital currencies.
• 2.0 billion people in the world do not have a bank account.
• China's naval shipbuilding capacity is 232 times greater than that of the United States.
• EU member states defense expenditure in 2025 increased by 63% compared to 2020.
• The U.S. has blacklisted dozens of Chinese entities to block access to advanced lithography & AI chips.
• U.S. based institutions produced 40 notable AI models in 2024, compared to 15 in China & 3 in Europe.
• There were 59 active state-based conflicts in 2025, the most since the end of WWII.
• One-third of U.S. forces could be robotic in 10 to 15 years.
• The global space economy could be worth $1.8 trillion by 2035, up from $630 billion today.
• 20,000 additional active satellites could be launched by 2030.
• AI's potential impact includes drug discovery, personalized medicine, robotic surgery, credit scoring, fraud detection, portfolio optimization, listing descriptions, tenant screening, virtual staging, forecasting, hyper-personalized commerce, customer service, quality control, robot-assisted assembly, predictive maintenance, AI agents, software development, & cybersecurity.