Well-known US private equity investor: AI, medicine and sports are the main lines of long-term investment in the future
[Well-known American private equity investor: AI, medicine and sports are the main lines of long-term investment in the future] Stephen Pagliuca, a well-known American private equity investor, said that many high-speed growth industries such as artificial intelligence (AI) and sports will become the focus of long-term investment in the future.
Stephen Pagliuca, a well-known American private equity investor, said that many high-speed growth industries such as artificial intelligence (AI) and sports will become the focus of long-term investment in the future. Pagliuca said in an interview that AI is moving from theoretical application to physical deployment stage, and will enter a long-term growth cycle in the next 10 to 20 years, and its application scope will cover space, national defense, medical care and other fields. He added that infrastructure construction to support the development of AI has become an "existential" need for large technology companies - if they fall behind in the AI race, the "Big Seven" of technology may lose a lot of business. He pointed out that with the possible exception of OpenAI, most technology giants have sufficient cash flow businesses to continue to support AI investments. However, the real winners and losers will emerge over the next five to seven years. Pagliuca also mentioned that the current focus of AI development has shifted from training large models to "inference" and actual task execution. In the field of biotechnology, he said that AI is helping scientists simulate the way drugs work in the human body, greatly improving the efficiency of new drug research and development, and speeding up the past research and development process that was "highly dependent on trial and error, like whack-a-mole." He further said that as quantum computing gradually matures in the next three to five years, the development of AI will usher in the next wave. "When the cost of quantum computing continues to decrease, the penetration rate continues to increase, and more and more companies develop new information processing methods, it will be combined with AI to bring about more advanced technological breakthroughs." Despite the current challenges facing the private equity industry, including the sluggish IPO market, Pagliuca remains optimistic about the industry. He said that private equity will remain a strong business model because it can help companies get rid of quarterly performance pressure and focus more on long-term development, while large private equity institutions can also create additional value for companies through technology, finance, marketing and digital capabilities. He said Bain Capital has grown about 20 times in size since outsiders questioned whether the golden age of private equity was over. Currently, Pagliuca is a senior consulting partner at Bain Capital. He served as co-chairman of the company from 2016 to 2022 and played a leadership role in Bain Capital's investments in many well-known technology, media, telecommunications and financial services companies. The recent successful IPOs of memory chip and optical component companies also prove that high-quality companies in AI infrastructure, space and defense and other fields still have good financing and exit channels. Pagliuca said, "This is a very successful business model." As a senior sports investor and one of the former owners of the Boston Celtics, Pagliuca believes that there are few signs that the sports industry boom will end. He said sports club valuations were rising as global audiences continued to grow thanks to social media and streaming platforms. At the same time, the competition between traditional TV stations and streaming media platforms for the rights to broadcast sports events has continued to push up the value of sports assets. It is not yet seen that this trend will be reversed. "So far, these companies have not significantly reduced their investment because controlling sports content is crucial to them," he said. "The market demand is still extremely strong." (