The war the Gulf had long feared finally came, but with a peace deal now signed the region is emerging with renewed optimism.
Gulf sovereign wealth funds ramped up dealmaking in the past three months, despite the region being embroiled in the Iran war and oil revenues being hit by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The region’s five biggest spenders collectively spent almost $26 billion during March, April, and May, a higher deployment rate than over the previous five years.
“They did not step back. If anything, they’re stepping forward,” Wael Younan, co-head of sovereign wealth management at US asset manager TCW, said at Semafor’s The Gulf’s Golden Age, Interrupted on Thursday, favoring infrastructure, AI, defense and healthcare, with the liquidity to buy what others must sell.
Disruptions caused by the war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz will also hasten the oil industry’s adoption of AI, AIQ CEO Dennis Jol said at the convening.
The war sharpened AIQ’s pitch to energy companies, with the disruptions showing the value of faster, automated decisions across the oil network that hadn’t looked worth it before, he said. “We could have decided which wells we’re going to turn off today, which ones we’re going to pump, which pipelines were not working, and be able to reroute everything.”