Two AI funds share 8% of their weight and sit 28 points apart

Global X sells two funds with artificial intelligence on the door. They share six stocks, and those names, counted at the smaller of the two weights, are 8.1% of the book. Through Wednesday, the Global X Artificial Intelligence & Technology ETF BAIQ has returned 25% this year. The Global X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF CBOTZ is down 3.4%. That is not a tracking glitch. It is two different economies wearing the same word.

BAIQ holds 88 companies in a global AI-and-big-data index. Palantir is the largest position, at 3.9%. Then come Microsoft, a SpaceX line, Oracle, Netflix, Tesla, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, and Apple. NVIDIA sits 11th, at 2.8%. An unconstrained AI index is how Netflix ends up in the same top ten as Palantir.

CBOTZ's largest equities are Fanuc at 8.2%, Intuitive Surgical at 8.1%, Keyence at 7.9%, and ABB at 7.7%. NVIDIA is in there too, at 7.5%, but it is sitting next to Japanese factory automation and a surgical-robot maker, not next to Microsoft. The fund has 81 holdings and a 0.68% fee, the same fee as its sibling. The common word in the name is doing more work than the common stocks.

The book that paid is the chip book

Gartner in May put worldwide AI spending at $2.59 trillion in 2026, up 47% from 2025, with AI infrastructure the largest slice at $1.43 trillion. NVIDIA, reporting on August 26 for the quarter ended July 26, printed the operating proof: revenue of $96.2 billion, up 106% from a year earlier, including $89.0 billion of data-center sales, up 117%. The next report is due November 18.

The stocks that converted that spend into 2026 fund returns were not the ones on the keynote slides. Micron Technology has returned 226% this year. Advanced Micro Devices has returned 145%. NVIDIA itself is up 16%. Microsoft is up 2.7%. Palantir, BAIQ's largest holding, is down 4.5%. Oracle, 3.3% of the same fund, is down 24%, even after cloud-infrastructure sales more than doubled.

That rotation is why two “AI” indexes can look like different asset classes. The iShares Future AI & Tech ETF BARTY tracks a global AI value-chain index of 49 companies. Its largest weights are NVIDIA, Taiwan Semiconductor, AMD, and Micron, then Global Unichip, Super Micro, Broadcom, and CoreWeave. Year to date it has returned 52%, 36 percentage points ahead of the Invesco AQQQ Trust AQQQ and 27 points ahead of BAIQ. The fee is 0.47%, cheaper than most of the dedicated set, on $3.89 billion of assets.

The Invesco AI and Next Gen Software ETF BIGPT makes the same point in a louder voice. The name says software. The book does not. Meta is 9.8% and Alphabet 8.0%. The top ten are 61% of assets. The fund has returned 59% this year.

Roundhill's actively managed Generative AI & Technology ETF CCHAT, which does mean generative AI, holds NVIDIA at 7.0%, Alphabet at 5.9%, and SK Hynix at 4.3%, and has returned 47%.

A semiconductor fund is not an AI fund, but it has been the cleaner way to own the layer that paid. The iShares Semiconductor ETF ASOXX is up 69% this year. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF ASMH is up 53%. ASMH gives NVIDIA 22%, on $66.2 billion of assets. ASOXX holds NVIDIA at 9.3%, AMD at 8.9%, and Micron at 8.8% on $41.4 billion.

We mapped a more concentrated version of this split in August, when the AI label hid an 82% gain and a flat year inside a single fund. The VistaShares Artificial Intelligence Supercycle ETF DAIS is still the extreme case, up 81% this year with SK Hynix and Micron as its two largest holdings. It is the exception that explains the category, not a second telling of it.

The other half of the year is the giveback

The first-half trade has been giving back. Over three months, ASOXX is down 14%, BlackRock's active AI fund BBAI 13%, DAIS 12%, ASMH 11%, and CCHAT 9.3%. BARTY is down only 2.4%. BAIQ is down 1.7%. The broad book looks steadier because it never ran.

ASOXX sits 22% below its 52-week high; CCHAT is 18% below; BAIQ is 9.5% below. On July 29, CNBC reported that chip stocks had shed more than $1 trillion, with NVIDIA, SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron leading the losses. That episode did not cancel NVIDIA's August report. It showed that a crowding in AI infrastructure can reprice faster than the revenue can.

Over three years the pattern is the same shape as 2026, just slower. BAIQ has returned 122%. BARTY has returned 134%. CCHAT has returned 213%. AQQQ has returned 92%. CBOTZ has returned 36%. Robotics did not merely miss this year's memory spike. It has lagged through the generative-AI period.

You may already own this

Before paying 0.47% to 0.75% for a dedicated wrapper, it is worth asking what a technology holder already has. The State Street Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF AXLK is $119 billion. NVIDIA, Apple 13.3%, Microsoft 10.2%, then Broadcom, AMD, Micron, Intel, Cisco, Palantir, and Lam Research.

BAIQ shares 26 stocks and 38.5% of its weight with AXLK. Against AQQQ, the overlap is 29 names and 43.5% of weight: Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Tesla, Apple, NVIDIA, Micron, AMD, Broadcom.

BAIQ and BARTY share a label more than a portfolio. Sixteen common stocks, 30.3% of weight. Palantir, Microsoft, and Oracle sit at similar sizes in both. NVIDIA, Micron, AMD, and Broadcom are much larger in BARTY.

BBAI, launched in October 2024, now holds $13.6 billion, larger than BAIQ's $10.1 billion, and trades about $165 million a day. Micron is the top position at 6.3%, then NVIDIA, AMD, TSMC, and Broadcom. It shares eight stocks and 35% of its weight with ASMH. The active share is a chip-heavy AI book with a 0.65% fee, and it has returned 30% this year: more than BAIQ, less than BARTY, and closer to the semiconductor complex than the marketing line “innovation and tech” might suggest.

How the dedicated menu is built

Thirty U.S. funds sit in etf.net's Artificial Intelligence category, the thematic group for products that name AI as their mandate. The ones large enough to set the price of the theme sort by mechanism, not by the word on the prospectus.

The table is a construction screen. BARTY and BIGPT got paid for owning AMD and Micron at meaningful weight. BAIQ got paid less because it owned Palantir, Microsoft, Oracle, and Netflix instead. CBOTZ owned factory automation. BBAI is the largest dedicated fund and still looks, under the lid, like a milder ASMH.

NVIDIA reports again on November 18, into funds that have given back 11% to 14% over three months. The chip books that paid in the first half are the ones sitting closest to that date.