Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest projects global equity boom with disruptive technology

Ark releases Big Ideas 2024 report

Cathie Wood, ARK
Cathie Wood

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Disruptive technologies could result in the global equity market increasing market capitalisation from the current $19trn (£15.2trn) to $220trn by 2030, according to Ark Invest’s annual Big Ideas report, Disrupting the Norm, Defining the Future.

According to Ark’s research, the convergence of technology through public blockchains, multinomic sequencing, artificial intelligence, energy storage, and robotics could “create tectonic macroeconomic shifts more impactful than the first and second industrial revolutions”.

This could include a shift in global real economic growth from 3% on average throughout the past 125 years to over 7% in the next seven years.

See also: Ark Invest’s Wood and Rize co-founder Forbes on their new joint venture into European ETFs

Ark sees opportunities within the AI sector through neural networks, which it believes could create “tens of trillion dollars of value” and be “more momentous than the internet”.

“The potential for end-users is clear: a constellation of AI-driven Intelligent Devices that pervade people’s lives, changing the way that they spend, work, and play,” the report stated.

“The adoption of artificial intelligence should transform every sector, impact every business, and catalyse every innovation platform.”

In the public blockchain sector, Ark highlighted the potential of cryptocurrencies, smart contracts and digital wallets as financial infrastructure which could shape the industry.

“Deployed on public blockchains, smart contracts offer a global, automated, and auditable alternative to rent-seeking intermediaries and legacy financial infrastructure,” the report explained.

“In the aftermath of the ‘crypto crisis’ in 2022, several digital asset solutions gained traction, including stablecoins, tokenised treasury funds, and scaling technologies.”

In the multinomic sequencing sector, precision therapies, multinomic technologies, and programmable biology were labelled as key areas of innovation, while autonomous mobility such as robotaxis and advanced battery systems were set as technology expectations for energy storage.

Ark, which holds $26bn in assets under management, acquired European ETF issuer Rize ETF last September from AssetCo in a start to expansion in Europe and the UK.