Korea pushes for faster Nvidia AI infrastructure rollout

From left: Kerry Craig, global market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management; Miller Kim, CEO of Korea Investment & Securities; Christian Mariani, investment specialist in the US Equity Group at JPMAM; and Park Nam-seok, Korea head at JPMAM, pose for a photo during the "Global Market Outlook" client seminar held in Seoul on Tuesday. (Korea Investment & Securities)

Korea Investment & Securities and JPMorgan Asset Management hosted a client seminar in Seoul on Tuesday, highlighting investment opportunities emerging from the next phase of the artificial intelligence boom and growing demand for US technology assets.

The event, titled "Global Market Outlook," was held at InterContinental Grand Seoul Parnas and featured Kerry Craig, global market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, and Christian Mariani, investment specialist for the firm's US equities group.

The speakers argued that the AI industry is moving beyond the training stage, where companies focused on building and developing large AI models, into the inference stage, where AI technologies are increasingly deployed in real-world business applications and begin generating productivity gains and revenue.

As a result, investment opportunities are expanding across the broader AI ecosystem, including networking, computing, memory and power infrastructure, according to the asset manager.

"Rising investment in AI infrastructure is supporting earnings growth across equity markets in the US, Japan and Asia," Craig said.

He also advised investors to focus on high-quality credit bonds capable of delivering stable income rather than relying solely on expectations of interest-rate cuts.

"In an environment of persistent uncertainty, diversified global portfolios centered on quality assets remain important," he said.

The seminar also highlighted the Korea Investment JPMorgan US Tech Fund, which has attracted strong investor interest amid enthusiasm surrounding AI-related investments.

Unlike funds that focus primarily on the largest technology companies by market capitalization, the fund seeks to identify companies across the AI value chain using JPMorgan's global research platform. Investment targets include firms involved in AI computing, networking, memory, power infrastructure and customized processors.

Investor demand has accelerated rapidly. Korea Investment & Securities said approximately 300 billion won ($198 million) flowed into the fund over the past week alone.

Combined with the Korea Investment JPMorgan Global High Yield Fund, which the brokerage began offering exclusively this year, cumulative assets under management in the two products have reached about 560 billion won.

Miller Kim, CEO of Korea Investment & Securities, said the firm would continue working with leading global asset managers to provide clients with differentiated investment opportunities.

"We want to be more than a company that simply sells financial products," Kim said. "Our goal is to become a long-term partner that helps clients grow their assets by identifying attractive investment opportunities as early as possible."

ch0221@heraldcorp.com