Portfolio Manager Graeme Clark discusses how the tech sector benefits from exceptional leadership to navigate an era of heightened macro and economic uncertainty, driven by geopolitical shifts and the rapid rise of AI.
Graeme Clark is a Portfolio Manager on the Global Technology Leaders Team at Janus Henderson Investors, a position he has held since joining the firm in 2013. Graeme began his career at Ernst & Young in 1994 as a senior auditor. He later held the position of senior analyst covering European software and IT services on the sell-side for ING, Piper Jaffray, and Jefferies.
Graeme received a degree in accountancy and business from the University of Edinburgh, graduating with honours. He holds a CFA UK Level 4 Certificate in Investment Management and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland. He has 31 years of financial industry experience.
“Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty” was the topic of a recent insightful Janus Henderson event that I was delighted to attend. It included a leading UK senior politician as guest speaker and brought together executives from prestigious investment groups. Part of the enlightening event focused on how the technology sector can exemplify the power of strong leadership in times of flux.
Emerging innovations like artificial intelligence (AI) are drivers of transformation, while at the same time technology as a sector is exposed to the uncertainty of volatile political decisions. While we hear a lot of concern around increasing uncertainty, one thing that our Global Technology Leaders Team has certainty on is the long-term investment potential of the tech industry. Technology has a long legacy of taking share from the wider market; we continue to maintain our belief that artificial intelligence, the next wave of compute, has the potential to support the acceleration of tech company share gains.
Why visionary leadership matters in the tech sector
The technology sector is fortunate to have some exceptionally strong leaders and visionaries to drive the industry forward and help navigate elements of uncertainty, such as deglobalisation and the coming of age of AI. So much so that Jensen Huang (NVIDIA), Tim Cook (Apple), Satya Nadella (Microsoft), Sundar Pichai (Alphabet), and Jeff Bezos (Amazon) are all household names. Collectively, these companies have a total market capitalisation of more than US$20.5 trillion (at the time of writing)1 – greater than the GDP of countries such as Canada, Brazil, and Spain.2 That scale means that these tech leaders, their companies, as well as those leading some of the new disruptive AI companies like Sam Altman’s OpenAI, are increasingly important players in the current geopolitical and economic landscape.
Tech companies’ resilience amid geopolitical uncertainty
We have seen some major changes in technology ecosystems over the last decade or so, with a move away from global supply chains, to a significant shift towards deglobalisation, which is driving reshoring and onshoring efforts today. This shift was accelerated in the aftermath of COVID19, which revealed the shortcomings of global supply chains. We are seeing many governments push to develop domestic technology infrastructure, be it for AI build out or semiconductor manufacturing. Those investments have driven increased capital spending in areas like AI data centres and semiconductor equipment – tailwinds for the technology sector.
Geopolitics and deglobalisation
Technology is a national priority
Source: Janus Henderson Investors.
However, those deglobalisation efforts have also increased friction between countries. This came to a head with President Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” in April of this year, with material tariffs being applied on countries trading with the US, which introduced significant uncertainty to financial markets globally. In the technology equities space, experience is a requisite to managing portfolios through periods of elevated volatility. Technology’s rapid changes make it vital to understand both tech ecosystems and end-market exposure, to support capital preservation and to identify opportunities during periods of increased uncertainty.
From platforms to applications: the evolution of AI
AI has been central to much of the political friction we see today. This is centred around how important it will be in terms of improving efficiency and productivity, how disruptive it will prove, and who will win the AI race. Whatever the case may be, as a team we believe AI is a key catalyst to drive further tech sector share gains versus broader equities, underpinning unappreciated long-term growth for the sector.
AI evolution expands use cases
Source: Janus Henderson Investors.
The emergence of AI has increased uncertainty in the software space and in particular, application software. Despite enabling the acceleration of software coding, AI is seen as a threat to application software with some commentators suggesting that AI agents will be able to replace or replicate software applications. We believe that this is unlikely to be the case as mission critical software applications hold vital business data and business process models, which are difficult to replicate using agents or ‘vibe-coded’ software. The fact that a casual user can vibe code the classic arcade game Asteroids in minutes doesn’t mean that complex Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software from companies like SAP and Oracle can be replicated or replaced easily.
The widespread acknowledgement of the importance of AI has led to the technology’s building blocks, such as NVIDIA’s GPUs, becoming potential political pawns. Fortunately, as mentioned above, the leading technology providers and platforms have exceptional, visionary leaders with the significant scale of their combined market capitalisations behind them. This brings seats at the negotiating tables around the world and does not seem to have impacted the pace of development of this vitally important next wave of technology. We are also seeing the emergence of some native AI leaders with sizeable valuations including the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic; OpenAI is already valued at circa US$0.5 trillion, and potentially double that when it considers a public listing in 2026.3
How to navigate the AI hype: Look at the fundamentals
The pace of development, the amount of investment, and the sustainability of funding have led investors to increasingly question the level of hype around AI. Through our experience of investing through the dotcom tech bubble we can reflect and contrast between then and now; in our view there are key differences between what’s happening in current markets. One significant difference is that today’s AI boom is supported by more disciplined valuations and robust private funding among financially strong, large technology companies.
In an environment shaped by geopolitical shifts and rapid AI adoption, technology’s resilience depends on disciplined, visionary leadership. These leaders are steering through deglobalisation while leveraging AI as a structural growth driver, supported by robust fundamentals and strong balance sheets. For experienced investors, this underscores why leadership quality remains a critical determinant of long-term value creation in the tech sector.
References made to individual securities do not constitute a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security, investment strategy or market sector, and should not be assumed to be profitable.
1 Euronews; “Magnificent Seven surpass EU GDP”; 4 October 2025. CNBC Markets Data as at 18 November 2025.
2 IMF, Investopedia; Top 25 countries by nominal GDP as of 2025.
3 Reuters; “OpenAI lays groundwork for juggernaut IPO at up to $1 trillion valuation”; 30 October 2025.
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