For many, thematic investing used to mean adding a splash of robotics or clean energy to a core portfolio and waiting for the growth story to play out.
But that playbook no longer works.
We’ve entered a new age of thematic investing. Instead of one dominant trend driving the market, several are happening at once. And the geopolitical backdrop is speeding each one up, with government funding, national security priorities and huge amounts of capital behind them.
For investors, that makes it worth understanding the themes shaping the future of investing and the opportunities on offer.
Beyond defence – the scramble for rare earths
Countries becoming self-reliant and independent from the rest of the world used to almost exclusively mean buying more military equipment to protect themselves. It was shorthand for ‘defence spending’.
While military defence is still important given ongoing global conflicts, leaders now realise that true independence requires controlling your own manufacturing, technology and data infrastructure instead of outsourcing them to other countries.
It’s a massive security risk for countries to depend on competing nations for the essential raw materials needed to keep their economies and militaries running.
Western economies have traditionally treated raw materials – required for advanced defence systems, clean energy grids and next-gen semiconductors – as secondary concerns when they mostly went into consumer electronics.
But when a single F-35 fighter jet requires 400kg of rare earth materials, supply security becomes a national defence issue.
Because private markets alone aren’t solving the shortage fast enough, governments have started behaving like investors. The EU designated 47 mining and processing projects under its Critical Raw Materials Act, with €2 billion of European Investment Bank funding, and the US government has started taking equity stakes.
However, producing new supply will take time. A new mine takes 10 years or more to reach production, and forecasts already show lithium supply falling around 85% short of demand in 2045.
ETF to watch: WisdomTree Strategic Metals and Rare Earths Miners ETF
The WisdomTree Strategic Metals and Rare Earths Miners UCITS ETF (WREE) gives investors exposure to companies involved in the exploration, mining and refining of critical minerals and rare earth elements.
The fund invests across the strategic metals value chain – including lithium, copper, nickel, cobalt and rare earths – which are essential for clean energy grids and defence hardware like F-35 fighter jets. That puts it at the centre of the push by Western governments to secure their own supply and reduce their dependence on rivals.
Mining companies can be volatile, though. Their share prices tend to move with commodity prices, and new projects can take a decade or more to reach production, so taking a long-term view is important. The TER is 0.50%.
Beyond the chatbot – AI’s $500 billion build
AI is no longer just about ChatGPT, Claude or whichever chatbot is most popular.
The industry has moved into a new phase – data centres, chips and the power to run them. Amazon, Meta and Alphabet alone are projected to spend over $500 billion on this build-out across 2026 and 2027, adding a combined 30 gigawatts of data-centre capacity.
Physical AI – think robotics – is also moving from lab experiments into real-world factories and warehouses. Factories are struggling with worker shortages and rising demand, and robot parts are getting cheaper. As a result, humanoid robots are starting to take on warehouse sorting and logistics, especially in manufacturing hubs like China.
And once AI moves into the physical world, geopolitics follows. Chips, power and robots all depend on global supply chains, so governments are restricting who can buy advanced chips, racing to secure energy for data centres and treating AI as a matter of national strategy.
ETF to watch: WisdomTree Artificial Intelligence ETF
The WisdomTree Artificial Intelligence UCITS ETF (INTL) takes a different approach to capturing the AI boom. It targets global leaders across the artificial intelligence value chain, spanning machine learning, robotics, automation and physical AI hardware.
The fund sorts companies into three groups – enablers, engagers and enhancers – based on how much of their money comes from AI.
Enablers build the chips, data centres and infrastructure that AI runs on. Engagers create AI products and services. Enhancers use AI to improve what they already sell.
The fund puts the most weight on the enablers, meaning it’s closely tied to the billions that big tech firms and governments are pouring into AI. But tech shares can fall sharply when markets turn. The TER is 0.40%.
Beyond sci-fi – the quantum arms race
Further out on the horizon, frontier technologies like quantum computing and the space economy are moving from science fiction to government must-haves.
Quantum computers work differently from traditional computers, using qubits to process complex data at warp speed. Whichever country masters this technology first will hold an immense economic and military advantage, so global superpowers are competing fiercely in a tech arms race.
Governments worry that a powerful quantum computer could one day break today’s encryption, putting national security at risk. At the same time, they know the same technology could help design life-saving drugs, manage complex supply chains and solve problems beyond the reach of today’s machines.
That’s why the US is backing quantum with executive orders and billions in public funding to make sure American companies win the race.
Space is following a similar path. It’s now a multi-billion-dollar commercial market that also serves national security and defence interests – and big investors are increasingly treating it as a serious asset class.
ETF to watch: WisdomTree Quantum Computing ETF
If you want to look at cutting-edge disruption that’s heavily backed by national security initiatives, the WisdomTree Quantum Computing UCITS ETF (QWTM) gives you pure-play and tech-giant exposure to quantum architecture.
QWTM leans heavily towards specialised pure-play companies (like IonQ, Rigetti and D-Wave) alongside major tech monoliths like IBM, Alphabet and Nvidia, working on error correction and cloud platforms.
Holding early-stage technology is what makes it useful alongside a standard portfolio to capture any exponential compute breakthroughs.
However, it’s also a risk you’re taking on; emerging technologies come with uncertainty as the extent of commercial use cases and adoption remains to be seen. The TER is 0.50%.
How to invest in megatrends beyond the hype
Right now, multiple massive tech and industrial trends are booming at the same time, each pushed forward by different political pressures. To try and make money from this theme, investors should look further than just the obvious, hyped-up stocks that everyone else is piling into.
True, lasting investment value can often come from the foundational companies executing the unglamorous or structural work, like securing data networks, digging up critical minerals or building physical robotics. Governments need to fund this work out of geopolitical necessity and this makes revenue streams much more durable over the long haul.
On InvestEngine, you can hold any of these in a DIY portfolio within a Stocks and Shares ISA, SIPP or General Investment Account, with zero platform fees or trading commissions.
Investment risks
Value fluctuation: the value of investments, and any income from them, will fluctuate. This may partly result from changes in exchange rates. Investors may not get back the full amount invested.
Thematic investing: thematic ETFs focus on a narrow group of companies and sectors, so they can be more volatile than broad market funds and may underperform them for extended periods.
Mining and commodities: the share prices of mining companies tend to move with commodity prices, which can be highly volatile.
Emerging technologies: companies developing technologies such as quantum computing may be early stage, may not yet be profitable and face significant technical and commercial uncertainty.
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