Australian Equity Strategy "APAC Focus: The AI opportunity down under"...

Research evidence excerpt

Australian Equity Strategy "APAC Focus: The AI opportunity down under"...

Global Research

13 July 2026ab

Australian Equity Strategy Equity Strategy

AustraliaAPAC Focus: The AI opportunity down underPlease

Richard Schellbach

Strategist

richard.schellbach@ubs.com

+61-2-9324 2277

George Tharenou

Economist

george.tharenou@ubs.com

+61-2-9324 3520

Stephen Wu

stephen.wu@ubs.com

+61-2-9324 2283

Lily Huang

Associate Strategist

lily.huang@ubs.com

+61-2-9324 2656Australia’sAI opportunity is emerging through the real economy: data centre

investment, electricity demand, infrastructure, critical minerals, and the relative

resilience of asset-heavy business models. Surveying our stock analysts shows

which companies have the greatest potential to use AI to reduce costs, and even if

'moderate' AI adoption scenarios are realised, most companies in the ASX200

appear to have upside risk to earnings and share prices.

AI-related investment is becoming Australia’s next economic/capex cycle

AI-related investment in Australia ~tripled over the last ~year, and is likely to become

much bigger in coming years. Data centres under construction already spiked to a ~¾%

share of nominal GDP; but building approvals and plans to ~double existing capacity

suggest a much higher peak towards ~2% of GDP. Importantly, the Australian

government found "no evidence of labour market upheaval driven by AI. Indeed, the AI

boom is almost 'exogenous', and not impacted much by RBA rate hike cycles. Hence, in

the near term, this extra demand adds to inflation. UBS expects the RBA to hike 25bps in

Aug-26, to 4.60%. However, over the longer term, the increase in investment should

improve productivity, and become somewhat disinflationary.

The AI revolution may be digital, but is built on Australia's physical strengths