The next wave of tech growth may not come from Silicon Valley — here's where investors should look and how to capture it.
Artificial Intelligence isn’t just another tech trend — it’s the economic engine redefining the global order. From healthcare to finance to logistics to entertainment, AI is rewriting how the world works. Yet while headlines obsess over Silicon Valley titans, a massive opportunity is unfolding elsewhere. Beneath the radar of most investors, emerging markets technology companies are harnessing AI at scale — and in some cases, leapfrogging the developed world.
From mobile commerce in India to digital banking in Brazil to super-app ecosystems in Southeast Asia, billions of consumers are coming online — and AI is amplifying the monetization of that shift.
The intersection of AI acceleration and rapid digitization across emerging and frontier markets may represent one of the most underappreciated secular growth opportunities of the decade. At EMQQ Global, we've been deeply involved in monitoring and researching the Emerging Markets technology sector for over a decade, launching our three portfolios (EMQQ, FMQQ, and INQQ) to track this growth opportunity for investors. AI is rapidly emerging as the next big theme to dominate EM and the world.
Emerging and frontier markets represent the majority of the world’s population — and an expanding share of global digital consumption. Affordable smartphones, mobile broadband, and cloud infrastructure have opened massive addressable markets that skipped legacy systems entirely. These economies are not digitizing incrementally — they are transforming in real time.
This isn’t simply about user growth. It’s about entire economic systems migrating online. E-commerce. Digital payments. Food delivery. Ride hailing. Embedded fintech. AI-driven personalization. In regions across South Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia, these services are becoming foundational layers of daily life.
For investors, this means exposure to companies operating at the nexus of:
The rise of technology in emerging markets is increasingly supported by strategic AI initiatives from governments, sovereign investors, global tech firms, and public-private partnerships. Capital is being deployed into cloud infrastructure, AI talent ecosystems, and localized machine learning capabilities — strengthening long-term competitive positioning.
Within the EMQQ Global portfolios (EMQQ, FMQQ, INQQ), companies are already embedding AI across:
The result? Higher engagement. Better margins. More scalable business models.
These companies sit at the intersection of population scale, AI-enabled efficiency, and structural consumption growth.
Source: Stanford University, India Rising
EMQQ Global’s index suite is designed to provide targeted access to the internet and digital economy across emerging and frontier markets.
India, in particular, stands out as one of the most compelling growth stories globally. With one of the world’s largest and youngest populations, a rapidly expanding smartphone base, and accelerating AI integration across payments, logistics, and commerce platforms, India represents a structural growth opportunity at scale.
The AI narrative has largely been framed around chips, cloud hyperscalers, and U.S. megacaps. But a second wave is building — one where AI amplifies consumption, productivity, and digital transformation across emerging economies.
Emerging markets technology is not just a diversification trade. It is a complementary growth engine — powered by demographics, digitization, and AI acceleration. For long-term investors seeking exposure beyond traditional developed-market benchmarks, EMQQ Global portfolios offer a thematic pathway into what could be the next phase of global tech expansion.
The AI revolution is global.
The next breakout leaders may be, too.