The AI Trade Is Bigger Than Tech Stocks. Managed Futures May Be Built for What Comes Next.

Artificial intelligence is creating potential trends far beyond technology stocks—from electricity and natural gas to copper, interest rates, and currencies. Managed futures may offer a powerful way to participate while diversifying equity risk.

When most investors hear “the AI trade,” they think of semiconductor companies and a small group of technology stocks.

That may be only the most visible layer.

Artificial intelligence runs on a vast physical system: data centers, power plants, transmission lines, transformers, cooling equipment, copper, natural gas, and enormous amounts of financing. Building that system could produce persistent price trends across dozens of global markets—not just the stock prices of today’s AI leaders.

That is precisely the kind of environment managed futures strategies were designed to navigate.

AI is becoming an energy and commodities story

The numbers are striking. The International Energy Agency estimates that global data-center electricity consumption will more than double to roughly 945 terawatt-hours by 2030—slightly more than Japan consumes today. This means in less than four years new electrical demand will equal the size of the third largest economy in the world. In the United States, data centers are expected to account for nearly half of electricity-demand growth through 2030. The IEA reported that data-center electricity use rose 17% in 2025 alone.

The U.S. buildout is especially tangible. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimates that American data centers used 176 TWh of electricity in 2023, up from 58 TWh in 2014. By 2028, consumption could reach 325–580 TWh, or approximately 6.7%–12% of total U.S. electricity use.

Meeting that demand requires far more than installing computer chips. Utilities must add generation and grid capacity. Data centers need backup power, cooling, and water infrastructure. New transmission lines require copper and aluminum. Natural gas may serve as a bridge where renewable generation and storage cannot provide round-the-clock power, while nuclear and geothermal projects may attract fresh investment.

Not every link will rise smoothly. Supply can respond, projects can be delayed, technology can become more efficient, and governments can intervene. Those crosscurrents are not a flaw in the opportunity. They are one reason a flexible trading approach may be more useful than a single long-term commodity forecast.

Trend following does not have to predict the winner

A traditional AI portfolio may require an investor to answer difficult questions: Which chipmaker wins? Which utility secures the right contracts? Will natural gas, nuclear power, renewables, or storage capture the greatest share of demand? Are current stock valuations already discounting the opportunity?

Trend following asks a simpler question: What are prices actually doing?

Managed futures programs generally use systematic rules to identify sustained moves across liquid global futures markets. They can take long positions in markets trending higher and short positions in markets trending lower. Their opportunity set may include energy, industrial and precious metals, agricultural commodities, equity indexes, government bonds, interest rates, and currencies.

If the AI buildout creates a lasting rise in copper or natural-gas prices, a trend strategy may build long exposure. If expanding power supply later pushes fuel prices lower, it may reverse and go short. If heavy capital spending lifts bond yields, changes the dollar, or benefits certain international equity markets, those trends can potentially be captured too.

The strategy does not need to know whether AI demand, geopolitics, weather, regulation, or constrained supply caused the move. It needs the move to become persistent enough to detect and trade.

That distinction matters. An investment in an AI stock is a concentrated bet on a company’s growth, competition, execution, and valuation. A managed futures allocation is a diversified bet that meaningful trends will continue to emerge across markets—and that a disciplined process can adapt as leadership changes.

A different kind of defense when markets swing

The AI investment boom may bring tremendous growth, but it also raises the potential for volatility. Expectations are high. Capital spending is enormous. Power constraints, shifting interest rates, disappointing model economics, or a reversal in technology-stock valuations could produce sharp market swings.

Managed futures can play a valuable role because they are not permanently long equities, bonds, or commodities. The ability to go long or short gives them the potential to profit from extended declines as well as advances.

History illustrates both the attraction and the limitation. The SG CTA Index gained approximately 13.1% in 2008 while a broad U.S. stock-market proxy lost about 36.8%. In 2022—when stocks and bonds fell together—the index gained roughly 20.2% while the stock proxy lost about 19.5%. Yet during the sudden first-quarter 2020 pandemic shock, the index was slightly negative while stocks fell sharply. Trend strategies typically need time to identify and reposition for a new move; they are not an instant hedge against every market break.

The more accurate benefit is therefore not guaranteed “crash protection.” It is adaptive diversification. If inflation, an energy shortage, rising rates, or an equity bear market develops into a sustained trend, managed futures can potentially reposition rather than remain trapped in yesterday’s portfolio.

The overlooked way to invest in the AI era

The strongest case for managed futures is not that AI guarantees higher commodity prices. It is that the AI buildout increases the number of forces capable of creating large, durable moves across global markets.

Some trends will rise from scarcity: not enough power, grid equipment, gas turbines, or metals. Others may come from abundance as investment eventually brings new supply online. Interest rates and currencies will respond to capital spending, inflation, and differences among countries. Equity leadership will change.

A disciplined trend strategy can participate without committing the entire portfolio to one forecast. It can follow strength, respond to weakness, diversify across many markets, and scale positions according to risk.

For private investors already holding substantial exposure to U.S. stocks—and often to the same handful of technology companies—the AI era may call for more than buying additional AI shares. It may call for a strategy capable of trading the second- and third-order effects of the buildout while offering a different return pattern when traditional markets struggle.

The AI trade may begin with chips. Its most persistent investment trends could unfold in everything required to power, build, finance, and protect the system around them. Managed futures offer a compelling way to cast a wider net.

Sources

• International Energy Agency, Energy and AI (2025) and 2026 update.
• Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage Report.
• SG CTA Index monthly returns and iShares Core S&P Total U.S. Stock Market ETF (ITOT) total-return data; calculations by the author. Indexes are unmanaged and cannot be invested in directly.