The ETF innovator that colors outside the lines

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AI left the building. And took the economy with it. The $434b AI market runs on chips, clouds, code, and a tiny capacitor you’ve never heard of. AIQ covers the vision. MLCC covers what makes it work.

Global X has never been big on ordinary, having built its name on out-of-the-box thinking, literally. Some of the biggest shifts in the economy don’t fit squarely inside the boxes traditional indexes are drawn around. So it went looking for those shifts, from solar to disruptive tech, and built ETFs around them. That thematic approach, bringing investors ideas they haven’t seen before, shows up in just about everything Global X does.

When the trend eats the label

For years, artificial intelligence (AI) lived in the tech section of the market. Well, that era “was” and no longer “is.” The global AI market is estimated at roughly $434 billion this year and could approach $2.5 trillion by 2031. More than a billion people already use AI every day, whether they’re writing emails or looking for restaurants. Meanwhile, farmers use it to time their planting, and hospitals use it to catch problems sooner.

AI stopped behaving like an industry when it started rewiring all the other industries. That was a structural shift for the ages, for the world, and for how the global economy runs. Investors who still treat AI like one tidy sector may be in for a big surprise. Piling into the fistful of mega-cap names that dominate headlines captures only one slice of the story and could miss the rest of the pie. Reality is bigger than a slice.

Who’s who

The Global X Artificial Intelligence & Technology ETF (AIQ) was built for that broader reality. It plays without sector or geography limits, casting a wide net across the AI ecosystem, from the companies developing the tech to the ones putting it to work. Holdings span software platforms, semiconductor designers, cloud infrastructure providers, and the data analytics firms that turn raw information into the stuff we understand.

Think of it as investing in how AI gets built and deployed, layer by layer, like an AI layer cake:

• Chips power the training runs.
• Cloud infrastructure keeps it all running.
• Software platforms carry the models into the real world.
• Data firms make sense of what comes out.

AIQ mirrors that, aiming to give investors exposure to AI’s evolution, rather than whichever names are winning the news cycle this quarter.

But every AI model runs on something physical.

The other who’s who

Behind every great machine is a bunch of little things making it work. And behind every AI server sits a web of tiny, mission-critical parts that you probably rarely, if ever, think about.

Case in point: Multi-layer ceramic capacitors, or MLCCs, show up in virtually every electronic device imaginable, stealthily helping regulate and store electrical energy. Every AI server and smartphone needs them in seriously large quantities, which is why a shortage of one tiny part can ripple through an entire global supply chain. However, production is concentrated among a small group of manufacturers, and many of them are tough to reach through conventional index construction.

That’s the gap the Global X MLCC & Electronic Components ETF (MLCC) aims to fill. And because it’s actively managed, it can include hard-to-access global manufacturers—including newly listed companies as the industry grows—without being diluted by unrelated holdings. Demand for these components is surging alongside AI, and MLCC aims to give investors a way to participate.

Put the two together, and the picture snaps into focus. AIQ captures the broad arc of AI adoption across software and hardware. MLCC drills into the physical components making it all possible. One is the app on your screen. The other is the wiring behind the wall. An AI portfolio arguably wants both: the vision and the wiring.

The thematic approach is the strategy

A shift this large calls for exposure to not only what people see but also what makes it possible. And the logic travels well beyond AI, whether it’s solar panels popping up on neighbors’ rooftops or the push to electrify everything from cars to the grid. Global X has never been big on ordinary—its whole business is finding value the indexes overlook, behind the screens and under the hood.

Curious where to go next? Global X’s wider lineup of thematic and income ETFs is where the wonderful rabbit hole starts.