Are Investors Undervaluing China AI? Ft. Kevin Carter, EMXETFs
This episode is sponsored by EMXETF.com
Kevin T. Carter joins Kyle to talk about TGRZ, the China AI LLM Tigers ETF, and why China’s role in the AI trade may be much bigger than most U.S. investors realize.
Kevin breaks down the AI market as a five-layer stack: electricity, chips, data centers, models, and applications. From there, he explains why TGRZ is focused on the model layer, where Chinese open-weight AI models like DeepSeek, Kimi K3, GLM, and Qwen are increasingly competing with U.S. models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others.
The conversation also gets into one of the biggest surprises from the episode: how differently China and the U.S. appear to view AI adoption. Kevin points to public sentiment around AI being roughly 80% favorable in China versus about 20% in the U.S., and Kyle explores whether that difference in adoption could matter as much as the technology itself.
They also discuss Jack Ma, Alibaba, the blocked Ant IPO, and why Kevin believes some of the risks investors associate with China are more complicated (and possibly more overblown) than the headlines suggest.
The episode closes with a look at AI infrastructure, data centers, power demand, underwater and space-based compute, and the broader question of whether AI destroys jobs, creates new ones, or does some combination of both.
As always, none of this is investment advice. TGRZ is speculative and volatile. Do your own research, understand the risks, and make sure any investment fits your own strategy.
Learn more at EMXETF.com.
Sponsors:
For more than 20 years, the EMXETF team has been focused on technology and innovation across Emerging Markets. Today, we believe artificial intelligence represents the next major chapter of that growth story. From advanced semiconductors and AI infrastructure to models, applications and digital platforms, Emerging Markets are playing an increasingly important role in the global AI ecosystem. EMXETF combines our deep experience in these markets with focused research to give investors targeted exposure to the companies helping shape the future of AI.
Kevin:
Kevin T. Carter is the Founder & Chief Investment Officer of EMXETF. While he considers himself an active “value” investor first and foremost, he has collaborated with Princeton economist and indexing legend, Dr. Burton Malkiel, for more than 20 years. Their work together began in 1999 with the development of eInvesting, a pioneer firm in fractional share brokerage that was acquired by ETRADE in 2000. In 2002 they founded Active Index Advisors, a pioneer in so-called “direct indexing” that was acquired by Natixis Asset Management in 2005. In 2006, their efforts turned to China and Emerging Markets with Dr. Malkiel’s publishing of “Investment Strategies to Exploit Economic Growth in China” and the subsequent book From Wall Street to the Great Wall. Working with Guggenheim Partners, they launched several China focused ETFs on the NYSE.
China AI Tigers ETF: TGRZ
China AI Research Report
Connect with Kevin on LinkedIn