Singapore investment giant Temasek to shun crypto in pivot to AI

Singapore’s state-owned investment firm, Temasek Holdings, said it will prioritize AI investments over crypto due to regulatory uncertainty and the lingering impact of a $275 million write-off from the collapse of crypto exchange FTX in 2022.

The firm, with an investment portfolio valued around 518 billion Singapore dollars ($400 billion), plans to increase its AI exposure from 6% of its portfolio in the first quarter of 2026 to 15% by 2031, Nagi Hamiyeh, president of Temasek Global Investments, told CNBC on Wednesday The AI investment cycle has just begun and will continue for decades, he said, while cautioning that valuations in some parts of the industry have run ahead of fundamentals.

Temasek, the state's largest investment vehicle after GIC Private Ltd., is still dealing with the hit it took following the collapse of FTX . That implosion and other failures exposed weak consumer protections in Singapore, prompting the central bank, the Monetary Authority (MAS), to swing toward stricter supervision, a move that resulted in higher compliance costs and slower licensing, among other challenges.

“We don’t have directly any, any investment in crypto,” Hamiye said. “I can’t forecast what happens in the future, and the role that crypto is going to play in the main economy, depending on the different regulations that might happen.”

Hamiyeh said Temasek is continuing to explore blockchain technology and its potential to transform the real economy even as it focuses on artificial intelligence adoption and the development of a commercial AI ecosystem.

“Not every situation needs frontier models,” he said, adding that “it’s all about the applications, and it’s all about the companies that embrace AI and build a moat.”

Stablecoin market cap fell to $312B in June, its largest monthly drop since TerraUSD, while tokenized equity volumes surged 145% to a record $3.86B.

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