"You don’t grow at 1,000% near the end of your life" - Munro's Nick Griffin on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity

Please note, this interview was recorded Tuesday, 17 March 2026

“You don’t grow at 1,000% near the end of your life. You grow at 30% at the end of your life.”

It was that observation from Munro Partners’ Chief Investment Officer, Nick Griffin, that crystallised just how early we may still be in the AI investment cycle, and put into perspective the opportunity that still sits at the feet of investors.

Griffin was referring to the explosive growth of AI platforms such as OpenAI and Anthropic. While those companies remain unlisted, the second-order effects are flowing through to listed beneficiaries like Nvidia, a position Munro has held since 2018.

There are, of course, multiple forces reshaping the global economy. Munro frames these as “Areas of Interest” defined by powerful structural tailwinds, spanning high-performance computing, climate and connectivity. But in Griffin’s view, one theme clearly dominates.

“The big change at the moment is obviously AI… how’s it going to change the way we work? How’s it going to change the investment landscape?” ponders Griffin.

“We are going through something akin to the industrial revolution here, very much an intelligence revolution. This technology is going to be scaled across every industry and the planet over the next 10 years.”

“If you can get your head around that, then you can get your head around where you should be investing in the future.”

In the interview above, Griffin expounds on the irresistible force that is AI and how Munro is positioning to take advantage via the Munro Concentrated Global Growth Fund Active ETF (ASX: MCGG). He also shares the other Areas of Interest capturing his and his team’s attention (it’s not all AI!), and some of the stocks they are investing in to express those views. 

INTERVIEW SUMMARY

Identifying structural winners

At its core, Munro’s investment philosophy is simple: identify structural change, then identify the companies most likely to win. 

Griffin frames this through history. The shift from cash to digital payments created winners like Visa and Mastercard. The migration from print to digital media drove platforms like Facebook and Google. 

Today, that same lens is being applied to artificial intelligence, which Munro sees not as a cyclical theme, but as a foundational shift in how the global economy operates. 

For investors, the message is resounding. Returns will not come from owning “technology” broadly, but from correctly identifying the few companies that sit at the centre of these structural shifts.

The AI build-out is just beginning

Central to Griffin’s thesis is the scale and early-stage nature of the AI infrastructure build.

“We’re very much in the view that the data centre build out is probably closer to the start than the end.”

Griffin leans on Nvidia founder Jensen Huang's description of this ecosystem as “AI factories”, where systems are designed to produce intelligence at scale.

“What we’re seeing right now is the build out of these data centres to effectively host these agents, to power these agents.”

The opportunity set, according to Griffin, spans three key areas:

• High-performance computing and chip supply chains
• Power generation and electricity infrastructure
• Connectivity, including networking and optical systems

Together, these areas account for roughly one-third of the portfolio, reflecting both conviction and discipline in position sizing.

Monetisation is already happening

A key question for markets has been whether investment in this space is sustainable. Griffin argues that debate is already being resolved.

“You are seeing this return on the investment… you are seeing the spending continue.”

He points to the rapid revenue growth of leading AI platforms as evidence that the technology is not only being adopted, but monetised at scale.

“At $50 billion per annum, each of them [Anthropic and OpenAI] now are both equally top five software companies in the world.”

This shift has also reallocated spending within the technology sector; “Software spending hasn’t gone away. It’s just gone somewhere else", notes Griffin. 

For investors, this is one of the most important insights. Capital is shifting, not disappearing. The task is to follow where that spend is going, rather than anchoring to where it has historically been.

Diversification beyond AI

Despite its strong conviction in AI, Munro is careful not to build a portfolio that is overly concentrated in a single theme.

“Most important [is] to have stuff that’s not just all AI because you can get a bit trapped being all AI in this market.”

The portfolio is broadly split into three buckets:

• AI infrastructure and enablers
• AI adopters, using the technology to enhance business models
• Non-AI exposures with idiosyncratic drivers

These non-correlated exposures include areas such as sports rights and healthcare, where earnings growth is less dependent on the AI cycle. 

In practice, this reflects a key portfolio construction lesson. Investors should balance exposure between the enablers, the adopters and areas outside the theme, ensuring participation without becoming overly reliant on a single narrative.

Infrastructure and a decade-long tailwind

Beyond AI, Griffin highlights infrastructure as another key structural theme, driven by both technological and geopolitical forces.

“If you’re going to spend a trillion dollars a year on data centres, that’s going to flow all the way through the economy.”

At the same time, rising geopolitical tensions are accelerating reshoring and defence spending.

“This isn’t going to be a 1-year thing. This is going to be a 10-year thing.”

From supply chain security to energy independence, these trends are driving sustained global demand for infrastructure investment. For investors, this broadens the opportunity set beyond pure technology, capturing second-order beneficiaries of both structural change and geopolitical shifts.

Managing risk and embracing mistakes

While the global growth opportunity set is compelling, Griffin is clear-eyed about the realities of investing.

“We’re fund managers, we’re not surgeons. We’re probably getting half of our decisions wrong all the time.”

To protect against the inevitable wrong decisions, Munro employs a structured stop-loss and review process, forcing the team to continually reassess positions when they move against them.

“The beauty of the stop loss process, it obviously pushes you to the sidelines, but it also helps you find the winners. It pushes you towards where the winners are.”

This discipline has led to meaningful portfolio decisions, including stepping away from software companies where valuations no longer justified the uncertainty.

“Why are we paying such high multiples for companies where we’re not really sure how this is going to turn out?” was the question the team found itself asking when stop losses were triggered across multiple software positions late last year. Munro subsequently exited all of its software stocks, avoiding most of the Saaspocolypse carnage.  

For Griffin and Munro, this process reinforces what successful growth investing is and is not about. It's not about being right all the time, but about managing errors and allowing winners to compound.

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