Reflections From the Milken Institute Asia Summit | October 2026

What I Learned in Singapore: Three Themes for Long-Term Investors

Chief Investment Officer Jeffrey Mills shares his reflections on the growing AI investment cycle, the evolving role of diversification, and the importance of trust and adaptability in long-term investing. Read on below the video for more detail on each of these themes.

I recently returned from Singapore, where I attended the Milken Institute Asia Summit. The conference brought together leaders of sovereign wealth funds, university endowments, and pension plans, executives from some of the world’s largest banks, asset managers, and private equity firms, government officials, and business leaders across industries ranging from technology to professional sports.

What made the experience particularly valuable was the opportunity to spend time with investors who manage substantial pools of capital and, importantly, measure success in decades rather than quarters. Through nearly a dozen sessions and numerous individual conversations, I had an opportunity to hear how these investors are thinking about many of the same questions we’re considering at Bessemer.

I returned with several observations that have reinforced, and in some cases challenged, our thinking at Bessemer. Some of the most valuable insights came not from areas of consensus but from differences in how investors view the opportunities and risks ahead.

Three themes stood out: the investment opportunities being created by artificial intelligence, the need to adapt portfolios to a changing economic environment, and the increasing value of human judgment and trust in a world being transformed by technology.

The AI Opportunity Is Enormous, but the Next Chapter May Look Very Different

Unsurprisingly, artificial intelligence dominated many of the conversations. There was broad agreement that we are witnessing one of the largest capital investment cycles in modern history, with trillions of dollars being committed to the data centers, semiconductors, power systems, and supporting infrastructure required to build out AI capabilities.

But an important distinction emerged repeatedly: investment in AI infrastructure is happening today, while much of the economic payoff remains ahead of us.

A senior global investment bank executive described 2026 as the year companies are moving beyond experimentation and beginning to systematically deploy AI, with more tangible financial returns potentially emerging in 2027 and 2028. That observation is consistent with our thinking about the evolution of this investment cycle.

The adoption figures shared at the conference illustrate this gap. While AI usage is becoming commonplace within technology companies and professional services, fewer than 10% of businesses in many other industries reportedly use AI daily. That gap between the heavy investment in building AI and the relatively limited adoption across much of the economy represents both the central opportunity and an important risk.

If AI ultimately delivers the productivity improvements we expect, its economic impact will extend far beyond the technology sector. The winners may include manufacturers, healthcare companies, financial institutions, and industrial businesses that successfully redesign their operations around these new tools.

Indeed, one of the most interesting observations came from a leading private equity firm, which noted that AI has become part of virtually every investment diligence process. The focus is not simply on reducing headcount. It is on using technology to fundamentally improve how businesses operate, serve customers, and grow. This is an important distinction for investors. The next phase of AI may increasingly reward companies that use the technology most effectively, rather than just those that supply it.

At the same time, I heard a surprisingly consistent message from some of the world’s largest long-term investors: they are increasingly willing to pay a premium for attractive businesses whose growth does not depend on AI.

I found that telling. For all the excitement surrounding AI, many portfolios have become exposed to the same underlying economic driver. Even companies outside the technology sector - utilities, industrials, real estate businesses, and credit issuers - may now depend, directly or indirectly, on continued AI infrastructure spending. This creates a potential concentration risk that may not be obvious from traditional sector allocations.

Our response is to be deliberate about where we invest in AI and where we diversify. We continue to see compelling opportunities across the physical infrastructure supporting AI, including power, industrial equipment, and key materials. We also want exposure to companies capable of capturing the productivity benefits as adoption broadens.

Additionally, we are seeking sources of return that are not dependent on this investment cycle. Healthcare is one area where we have recently added exposure to businesses supported by company-specific innovation, medical demand, and other drivers independent of AI infrastructure spending.

Our goal is to benefit from a powerful structural trend without allowing any single investment thesis to dominate an entire portfolio.

A Changing World Requires a Different Approach to Diversification

Another recurring theme was the return of what one large institutional investor described as the “cost of time,” or the higher cost of capital in an environment of elevated interest rates. 

For much of the period following the global financial crisis, exceptionally low interest rates provided a favorable backdrop for financial assets. Capital was inexpensive, valuations benefited from declining discount rates, and investors could often rely on bonds to provide protection when equities struggled.

That environment has changed. Higher interest rates create more attractive income opportunities in fixed income, but they also raise the hurdle for nearly every other investment. In private equity, for example, managers can no longer assume that inexpensive financing and expanding valuation multiples will drive returns. Increasingly, they must create value by improving the businesses they own.

I found it notable that some of the world’s most sophisticated institutional investors are responding by concentrating their private market relationships among fewer, higher-conviction managers, often seeking more direct co-investment opportunities alongside them.

This strongly reinforces our philosophy at Bessemer. We believe the value of private investing comes from disciplined manager selection, access to differentiated opportunities, and managers’ ability to drive operational improvements - not simply from leverage and financial engineering.

The conference also reinforced the need to reexamine traditional approaches to diversification. Several institutional investors questioned whether the relationship between stocks and bonds will provide the same degree of diversification as in prior decades. When inflation and interest rates are driving markets, both asset classes can come under pressure simultaneously.

That does not diminish the value of high-quality fixed income, particularly now that investors can earn meaningful income from it. But it makes the search for differentiated sources of return more important. Hedge funds, selected real assets, and carefully constructed private investments can each play a role, provided we understand their underlying risks and liquidity characteristics.

Perhaps the most interesting area of discussion at the conference concerned the future of inflation and interest rates. There was a strong consensus that rates would remain elevated, reflecting persistent inflation, substantial government borrowing, and the rising cost of rebuilding global supply chains. One discussion highlighted how the world is moving from “just in time” toward “just in case,” as countries prioritize security and resilience over maximum economic efficiency.

This shift is creating significant investment needs in manufacturing, logistics, energy, and critical minerals. One panelist noted that capital spending among major mining companies has increased only modestly compared with the expansion underway among technology companies, suggesting supply constraints in the years ahead.

But I left Singapore questioning whether the consensus on persistently high inflation and rates fully accounts for AI-driven productivity. Building the infrastructure for AI is capital-intensive and potentially inflationary today. Successfully deploying that technology throughout the economy could ultimately be profoundly disinflationary, allowing companies to produce more with fewer resources.

Both forces may be at work, but their timing matters. For investors, the implication is that we should avoid building portfolios around a single confident forecast for inflation or interest rates. Instead, we want portfolios with multiple independent drivers of return, capable of navigating a range of economic outcomes.

The Enduring Value of Trust

For all the discussion of technological transformation, the word I heard most frequently in Singapore was not “AI,” but “trust.” It surfaced in conversations about geopolitics, investment management, financial technology, and even professional sports. Singapore’s foreign minister discussed how trust becomes more valuable as global alliances fragment and countries compete to attract investment. Singapore itself is an example: a small nation that has established itself as a major center for global capital in part through its reputation for reliability and institutional strength.

Among institutional investors, trust came up in discussions about selecting investment managers. Interestingly, their frustrations were not primarily about disappointing short-term returns. They focused on managers who failed to acknowledge mistakes, blamed markets for poor decisions, or prioritized extending investment funds rather than returning capital to clients. That distinction resonated with me. In investing, performance matters, but the quality of the people, their incentives, and their willingness to be candid when things go wrong are fundamental to sustaining performance over time.

One of my favorite sessions brought together Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, and Toto Wolff, team principal of the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team. Although their professional worlds are very different, they shared similar philosophies about achieving sustained excellence.

Dalio described how an early investment mistake nearly ended his career and taught him to question his own certainty, actively seek disagreement, and value diversification. Wolff discussed how even eight consecutive world championships did not protect Mercedes from falling behind when the rules changed. Their common message was that long-term success depends less on being right all the time than on recognizing when you are wrong and adapting quickly.

Wolff made another observation that struck me: organizations are generally very good at analyzing their failures but often fail to examine their successes with the same rigor. That has direct relevance to investing. Strong markets can make average decisions look brilliant, just as difficult markets can obscure sound long-term decisions. Understanding why an investment worked is every bit as important as understanding why another disappointed.

These are principles we work to reinforce within our investment team. We want conviction, but not certainty; high standards, but also intellectual humility; and a willingness to revisit even our most successful investment decisions as circumstances change.

Bringing the Lessons Home

I came away from Singapore encouraged by the breadth of the investment opportunities ahead but equally convinced that the path will not be straightforward.

AI is creating new possibilities, yet the eventual distribution of economic benefits remains uncertain. Higher interest rates have restored attractive income opportunities while also changing the economics of private investing and traditional diversification. Geopolitical fragmentation is creating new industrial opportunities, but at potentially higher costs.

These developments reinforce several priorities in how we manage client portfolios: maintaining exposure to long-term growth opportunities without becoming overly dependent on any single theme; seeking genuinely differentiated sources of return across public and private markets; remaining disciplined about valuation, liquidity, and manager selection; and continuously challenging our own assumptions.

Above all, the conference reminded me that successful long-term investing requires a combination of conviction and adaptability. We need to understand the structural forces reshaping the world while remaining humble about our ability to predict exactly how they unfold. The strongest organizations are not necessarily those that anticipate every change correctly. They are the ones that learn continuously and adapt when circumstances demand it.

As the world changes, our goal remains the same: to preserve and grow irreplaceable wealth over generations, with investment strategies aligned to each family’s particular needs.