newsfilter
← Interviews
Milken Institute30 min

Investing Through Global Disruption | Asia Summit 2026

Sri Jegarajah, Jenny Lee, Carlos Obeid, Rohit Sipahimalani

Conference Presentation, Panel
  • Mubadala projects investing approximately 10% of assets under management annually across all vintages while maintaining a rotation rate of selling or receiving distributions of roughly 10% to fund new investments.
  • Mubadala intends to increase its portfolio allocation to Asia beyond the current 13%, having previously raised exposure from 10%, by leveraging partnerships to access frontier companies where direct capital is insufficient.
  • The UAE economy and Mubadala's strategy aim to generate returns by integrating with global partners, including the formation of MGX two years ago to expand available capital for investing in frontier companies.
  • Jenny Lee anticipates an extended "Gilded Age" for AI over the next 10 to 30 decades, necessitating new rules to manage the technology and establish counterbalances as access to models democratizes.
  • Future AI development is expected to shift safety mechanisms from afterthoughts to product features, with startups creating third-party testing rails for physical robots and private companies considering safety innately alongside external jurisdictional rules.
  • AI-driven drug discovery is projected to transform business models through modular manufacturing and automated equipment, enabling the creation of 20 to 30 molecules in four years with revenue doubling or tripling annually while replacing human workers.
  • The market may see the emergence of "one person unicorns" generating revenue from day one by building with various models, alongside AI drug discovery visibility that investors are currently awaiting.
  • Valuation discussions for AI companies could reach 10x, 20x, 30x, 50x, or even one trillion dollars, contingent on the technology staying on track regarding safety and the transition from AI 1.0 to 3.0.
  • Asia, particularly China, is expected to compete on use cases rather than frontier models by leveraging historical strengths in factories, physical world data collection, and CROs for AI drug discovery.
  • Continued Asian innovation in consumer applications like TikTok and Red Note is expected due to diverse populations and the ability to understand subcultural nuances, while Mubadala plans to capitalize on opportunities across all regional strategies.
  • Inflation is expected to remain high in the near term but could become disinflationary in the longer term due to AI, though trajectories remain uncertain and require portfolios to balance growth with commodities and infrastructure for resilience.
  • Risks include potential market unwinding by 2027 if end users do not see sufficient ROI due to safety issues or regulation, alongside inflation driven by sticky energy prices, supply chain disruptions, wars, and El Nino.
  • Rising rates combined with sticky inflation present a risk of a breaking point on the equities market, and the AI narrative depends on earnings momentum of key players to avoid a market correction.
  • Mubadala expects AI sector valuations based on earnings growth estimates to change, requiring careful capital deployment across the value chain including data centers, applications, and language models.
  • Investors await visibility into AI for drug discovery efforts as companies like Anthropic accelerate monetization for large horizontal applications such as coding.