MC EXCLUSIVE Samir Arora's Global AI Playbook: NASDAQ 100, Cybersecurity, and China Tech ETFs

Samir Arora sees NASDAQ 100 as the easiest entry point for Indian investors seeking global exposure

With foreign investors chasing the global AI trade through markets like China, Japan, and Taiwan, Indian investors are increasingly looking abroad to participate in the international rally. For Samir Arora, founder of Helios Capital, the starting point for most Indian investors is simple: the NASDAQ 100 ETF.

“It captures all the big technology themes: right now AI, sometimes cybersecurity, cloud, search engines, or hardware plays,” Arora told Moneycontrol in an exclusive chat. “These companies have great technology, are multinational, generate strong cash flows, and aren’t really bothered whether interest rates go up or down. If they were a country, they’d be the best one: fiscal surplus, global exposure, constant innovation.”

Arora said the NASDAQ 100 is the easiest entry point for Indian investors seeking global exposure. For those looking for more focused thematic bets, he recommends cybersecurity ETFs, which his global fund also holds.

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“AI will make it easier to hack, so companies and governments will have to spend more on defending. Whether it’s banks, platforms, or even airlines, everything will need protection. Cybersecurity is a big-picture theme, and there are plenty of stocks in that space,” he explained.

China also features on Arora’s radar. “We like China because it is cheap,” he said. His fund owns the KWEB ETF, which he describes as the NASDAQ 100 equivalent for Chinese tech, with companies like Tencent and other internet giants.

When asked about the AI frenzy and concerns about a potential bubble, Arora was cautious. “For unlisted companies like OpenAI, I don’t invest. But NASDAQ 100 covers all major listed AI companies, like NVIDIA, and that’s a safer way to gain exposure than buying individual AI names. There’s some bubblish activity, take NVIDIA investing $100 billion into OpenAI. Although the money is real, OpenAI will effectively use it to buy NVIDIA chips. That creates a very closed loop, and if it unwinds quickly, the impact could be sharp.”

He added that NASDAQ 100 is safer than concentrating on the Magnificent 7 stocks. “Some investors focus only on these six or seven companies, which can be risky because of concentration. For example, our fund owns only Meta and Google now; previously we also had Microsoft, Amazon, and Tesla. The NASDAQ 100, by contrast, spreads your exposure across multiple technology leaders, giving diversification while still capturing AI, cloud, and other themes.”

For Indian investors seeking global diversification, Arora’s playbook is clear: start with the NASDAQ 100, add cybersecurity for a focused thematic exposure, and consider Chinese tech as a contrarian value bet through ETFs like KWEB.

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