Citrix Anti-Utopian Research Report Remodels AI Investment: "AI Doomsday Narrative" in the United States, Alpha in Asia Computes Power Chain

Citrini Research recently released the "2028 AI Doomsday Prophecy" - a comprehensive envisioning of a dystopian AI future shaped by artificial intelligence. The organization predicts that by 2028, despite the unexpected surge in global AI productivity, a "global economic pandemic" will occur due to the complete upheaval of white-collar employment, leading to a state of panic in the global financial markets. Panic selling has been observed in multiple market sectors, from software and wealth management to logistics, following this "2028 AI Doomsday Prophecy report." Investors are becoming increasingly fearful of the performance impact of AI intelligent agents like Claude Cowork and OpenClaw (formerly known as Clawdbot, Moltbot), adopting a "shoot first, ask questions later" selling mode. At the same time, the "Memo from the AI Prosperity Crisis of the Future" by Citrini Research is reinforcing a bet that Asia, with core chip manufacturers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Sponsored ADR and companies like Foxconn, SK hynix, and Samsung in its AI computing infrastructure, will emerge as the biggest winners in the trend of "AI disrupting everything." This is in contrast to the turbulent times being faced by the tech sector in the United States with high software and light asset exposure. The highly concentrated nature of global leading chip manufacturers, high-performance AI server contract factories, and core hardware assembly companies for AI data centers, combined with the recent listings on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange such as KNOWLEDGE ATLAS and MiniMax, related to AI big models, are increasingly attracting global investors to shift their focus towards Asian tech stocks. Alap Shah, the Chief Investment Officer of Lotus Technology Management and a co-author of Citrini's dystopian future report, emphasized that semiconductors, large AI data centers, and basic model labs' core participants would be the "key beneficiaries of the global AI investment theme." Shah suggested that governments should consider taxing incremental or windfall gains from artificial intelligence to help offset the impact of unemployment. He stressed that the market's response to their dystopian report was "definitely much greater than we had anticipated." "We usually short companies we believe will be completely disrupted by AI. On the other hand, we hold a large number of semiconductor tech stocks because we believe these companies will benefit from it," Alap Shah predicted a further period of market volatility, especially involving software companies, pointing out that traders are assessing the long-term potential impact of AI. As indicated in the figure above, Asian stock markets have seen their best start in history relative to US stock markets, with the chart showing the year-to-date returns as of February 23. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index was launched on December 1, 1998. A research report from June 2028 has stirred the financial markets Citrini Research's report, known as the "2028 AI Doomsday Prophecy" by the market, has been able to trigger significant volatility in a short period not because it provides many "new facts," but because it offers a structured, tradable left-tail scenario: it presents a counterintuitive proposition that questions whether the narrative of a bullish AI market continuing to be proven right might actually be bearish for the economy and the markets. The mechanism chain of the "AI Prosperity Crisis" recently proposed by Citrini Research is as follows: AI intelligent agents drive the replacement of white-collar positions, leading to a decline in wages and spending power, ultimately resulting in the emergence of a "Ghost GDP" where there is strong productivity but money does not circulate. Under this "dystopian" mechanism, the consumption-driven economy of human society (the current high consumption ratio mentioned in the report) is eroded, causing risk assets such as stocks to face negative feedback at high levels, leading to a scenario where unemployment rates surge to double digits and global stock markets experience a substantial retreat from their highs. Citrini Research has cut the single-line story of "AI = productivity/profitability growth" into the conflicting two-track conflict of "market prosperity vs. real economic weakness." The ability of this dystopian report to shake global stock markets is more realistically explained by the fact that it hits the sectors that are currently most overcrowded, fragile in terms of valuation, and most easily affected by the narrative of AI disruption - software/SaaS and business models that depend on "human friction" for revenue generation. When a sufficiently convincing pessimistic narrative strings concerns about "AI agents eroding business models based on seat-based subscription revenue/intermediary models" into a shareable framework, it quickly triggers de-risking by active funds, risk models, and increased cross-sector correlations. Investors often see on the market not a belief about what 2028 will bring, but a realization that software stocks with high valuation multiples have little buffering against the variable of "AI machine price-repricing growth visibility." This point is also confirmed by Business Insider's latest commentary: the report, widely circulated on social media, has become one of the catalysts for the recent bouts of volatility in software stocks and the broader software sector on Monday, resulting in a significant market decline and software stocks leading the downward trend. However, Citrini's AI doomsday concerns primarily target the vulnerability of software business models (seat-based subscription revenue, renewal fees, process intermediaries) in an AI agent/AI intelligent era - with these tech giants highly concentrated in the United States. Nevertheless, despite turbulence in the software sector, as long as the global trend of "crazy procurement of AI computing infrastructure, massive construction of AI data centers, and training/tuning of AI large models" continues, the upstream semiconductor, storage, server/chip contract manufacturing, advanced testing, server/power/cooling, and AI data chain are more likely to be seen as "channels with more predictable AI cash flows." Therefore, until the logic line of "AI capital expenditure - hardware manufacturing and supply - pricing of computing power" is not falsified, Asian tech stocks are more likely to generate structural alpha. The term "alpha" refers to returns on investments that significantly exceed "beta returns" - which denotes synchronously realized investment returns data based on benchmark stock indices. The synchronous returns achieved by tracking benchmark indices are also known as "beta returns" (Beta). The strongest thread in the current AI investment theme undoubtedly lies in the "restricted supply side + high technological barriers" segment of AI computing infrastructure manufacturing/contracting - that is, advanced process contract manufacturing, advanced packaging, HBM/high-end server storage, critical power, liquid cooling, and thermal management equipment, as they shift the economic unit of AI from "software seats" to "computing power and energy consumption per token." These segments are predominantly centered in the Asian market. The "AI panic trade" sparked from American Software, Inc. Class A shares, with funds increasingly moving towards Asian chip stocks and the AI data center chain The MSCI Asia Pacific Information Technology Index, consisting of essential global AI computing industry chain participants like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Sponsored ADR, Foxconn, and SK hynix, as well as benchmark indices primarily composed of chip stocks in South Korea and Taiwan, and stocks like KNOWLEDGE ATLAS, and MiniMax linked to AI large models that have doubled in the past month, represent rare pure AI laboratory investment targets. In contrast, companies like OpenAI and Claude developer Anthropic, which recently caused upheavals in the stock market, have not yet debuted on the market. Additionally, the Japanese stock market has recently shown strong growth, benefitting not only from the stimulus fiscal policies of the Abe government, which held the majority seats in the House of Representatives, but also due to Japanese companies playing a crucial role in the value chain related to AI GPU/AI ASIC among other essential AI computing infrastructure devices. Companies like Lasertec, focusing on EUV mask actinic inspection crucial for the global AI chip industry chain, play an essential and indispensable role in the technology chain. Lasertec is considered crucial in the semiconductor manufacturing process as the most important link in the "EUV lithography chain" - providing actinic mask quality inspection/measurement using the same 13.5nm actinic as EUV to discover "printable defects" only visible under EUV lithography conditions, ensuring mask quality and stable production and is essential for the successful implementation of EUV lithography processes. The current AI chip and high-end storage super cycle are expanding the boundaries and capacity intensity of EUV and High-NA applications - the more complex and extensive the mask coverage, the greater the scarcity of Lasertec, leading to larger orders and valuation elasticity. The Asian index structure enhances the "US-Asia decoupling": leading weightages from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Sponsored ADR/Samsung/SK hynix dominate, while companies like Jiangsu Asia-Pacific Light Alloy Technology reach new highs as "correlations" decrease significantly. "The top technology stocks in Asia, such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Sponsored ADR, Samsung, and SK hynix, are direct beneficiaries of the increasing AI spending by global tech giants," said Vey-Sern Ling, Managing Director of Union Bancaire Privee in Singapore. "The AI panic trade truly started with a massive sell-off of software stocks, and most well-known software companies globally are listed on the US stock market." Senior analyst Ling from Union Bancaire Privee added that other major constituents of the MSCI Asia Pacific Index, including banks, materials, and chip manufacturing companies, can also be seen as crucial participants in the global AI computing industry chain - closely associated with the AI GPU cluster led by NVIDIA Corporation and the TPU cluster led by Alphabet Inc. Class C. Thus, their exposure to the negative effects of AI disruption is minimal. The significant decrease in the weekly correlation between the MSCI Asia Pacific Information Technology Index and the Nasdaq 100 Index to 0.45 is shown in a key data point reflecting the sharp divergence between Asian and US tech stocks since 2017. The leading position of chip stocks in the local benchmark indices has further magnified this divergence or decoupling trend. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Sponsored ADR's weight in the Taiwan Weighted Stock Index (Taiex) has reached 45%, triple the level from ten years ago. In South Korea, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix together account for about 40% of the KOSPI, the benchmark stock index which has been the best-performing globally this year. After an explosive 75% surge in 2025, the Korean stock market has been among the "world's most frenzied stock markets" in 2026 with a 40% year-to-date increase in the benchmark stock index. BlackRock, Inc.'s iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM.US) with accumulated assets under management of up to $280 billion, has achieved a rare "ten-day rise" and is reaching historical highs, with a 14% increase year-to-date, significantly outperforming the S&P 500 Index and the Nasdaq 100 Index. "The decoupling has begun," said Christopher Forbes, Head of Asia at CMC Markets Singapore. "It is expected that by 2027, the earnings growth of the Asian stock markets will reach up to 13-14%. Any calls to re-couple without considering the index components structure would be fighting a completely wrong battle." Winners and risk boundaries: AI CAPEX supporting Asian resilience, but traditional IT companies in India are still under pressure Concerns surrounding software stocks stem from the rapid progress of efficient AI intelligent agent tools (such as Claude Cowork from Anthropic PBC) at the technological level, exacerbating the debate over how quickly traditional SaaS software suppliers' basic business models will be eroded. Author Nassim Taleb has also warned that certain segments of the traditional software industry may face severe pressure, including potential mass bankruptcies. The recent crash in software stocks and the rotation of downturns across various sectors are mainly driven by the pessimistic narrative of "AI disrupting everything." This narrative gained global market momentum in mid-February, leading to a scenario where the software subscription sector and the broader software sector experienced broad sell-offs following the release of a series of AI tools/agent AI intelligent agent cooperative platforms from Anthropic, labeled as the "OpenAI rival." These developments sparked a widespread wave of selling in the SaaS subscription software sector and the stock market's broader software sector. Influenced by this severe concern, the software and services index of the S&P 500 fell by about 15% since late January and wiped out nearly $1 trillion in market value in just one week. The decline in software stocks is chiefly due to market fears that tools like Claude and OpenClaw (formerly known as Clawdbot, Moltbot) that have gained traction and spread virally could weaken the entire software empire based on SaaS subscription revenue models. This selling frenzy quickly spread to industries like insurance, real estate, truck transportation, and any other business models that seemed labor-intensive, as the market believed these sectors would be completely disrupted by AI. This shift highlights how investors are moving away from staying invested in North American SaaS software stocks and pioneering US AI companies like Microsoft Corporation and Amazon.com, Inc., shifting their preferences to organizations that have a pricing power advantage, focusing on AI computing infrastructure producers - almost all of which are based in the Asian market. The surge in storage chip prices and demand providing a big boost to the stock trajectory of companies like Samsung, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Sponsored ADR, as the world's leading contract chip manufacturer, holds a key position in global chip manufacturing - crucial for NVIDIA Corporation, AMD, and Alphabet Inc. Class C, which are highly dependent on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Sponsored ADR for AI chip production, thereby supporting the entire Asian stock market. Despite this, some traditional tech companies also find themselves on the losing side. For instance, an index of Indian IT giants like Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. and Infosys Ltd. has fallen by more than 20% since the release of Anthropic. The concerns surrounding AI's impact on related companies have further intensified as Indian software services stocks saw deep selling. On Tuesday, India's Nifty IT index recorded a drop of nearly 5%, marking the fifth consecutive trading day of declines. Since the beginning of this month, the Indian tech benchmark index has fallen by around 20%, with a market cap loss of over $54 billion. "The entire business model of Indian IT is built on one core advantage: Indian developers' costs are much lower than their counterparts in the US. But now, the marginal cost of AI programming assistants has essentially fallen to the level equivalent to electricity costs," as revealed by Citrini Research's study. However, investors believe that there are ample reasons for Asian stocks overall to continue outperforming the US stock market, with supporting factors including their unique and indispensable position in the AI computing ecosystem, lower valuations, and stronger profit growth. The Korean government reported on Monday that semiconductor exports had surged by 134% year-on-year in February, helping the Korean central bank predict a "significantly higher" economic growth rate this year, higher than the previous year, with the country's core DRIVE based on the strong global demand for storage chips and South Korea's ownership of two major storage chip manufacturers, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. "As long as the logic of massive AI capital expenditure (i.e., AI CAPEX) continues to exist in the market, Asian tech stocks may exhibit more resilience," said Chetan Seth, Asia stock strategist at Nomura (Nomura Holdings). "After all, Asia is the manufacturing center of the most critical AI hardware infrastructure required for the immense AI data center investments, and the Asian stock markets - especially South Korea and Taiwan, have a high index weight towards the hardware manufacturing companies set to significantly benefit from these growth trends."