AIFD vs QTUM

AIFDCTCW Artificial Intelligence ETF

QTUMADefiance Quantum ETF

In short

AIFD An actively run, roughly 30-stock take on artificial intelligence that launched in 2017, well before the chatbot rush. TCW's managers hunt the whole chain: the firms building AI, the ones supplying its plumbing, and the ones putting it to work.

QTUM Live since 2018, QTUM turns the quantum-computing story into a plain index fund: about 90 global names spanning quantum hardware and machine learning, for 0.40% a year.

Stated mandate

AIFD The Fund seeks long-term growth of capital through active investment in companies the Adviser believes will benefit from advances in artificial intelligence, including AI adopters, AI-system developers, and providers of foundational technologies.

QTUM The Fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the total return of the BlueStar® Quantum Computing and Machine Learning Index. It uses a passive indexing approach.

Why people hold it

• AIFD Active and concentrated: about 30 names chosen by TCW's managers rather than a rules-based screen, so it doesn't have to look like every other AI basket.
• The mandate reaches across the full AI chain: system developers, providers of the foundational technology underneath, and the adopters putting it to work.
• Launched in 2017, years before generative AI went mainstream. This is not a fund that appeared the week the theme got hot.

• QTUM 0.40% a year against a 0.68% median for its AI-theme cohort, and it undercuts peers like WTAI (0.45%) and ALAI (0.55%).
• Rules-based by design: it tracks the BlueStar Quantum Computing and Machine Learning Index, so no manager is hand-picking which quantum story wins.
• About 90 holdings across global markets, so the theme rides on a basket instead of two or three pure plays.
• Size and liquidity back it up: a multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively, and one of the stronger implementations in its thematic peer group.

Worth knowing

• AIFD At 0.75% a year it runs above the median AI fund, and index-tracking rivals like XAIX (0.35%) and ARTY (0.47%) deliver the theme for far less.
• Thinly traded with a modest asset base, so spreads can widen. Limit orders matter more here than with the category's giants.
• With roughly 30 holdings, single-name moves land hard, and the stated goal is long-term growth of capital rather than income.

• QTUM Risk is the softest part of the profile. One narrow, early-stage theme in a single asset class means sharper swings than a broad-market fund.
• The index covers machine learning as well as quantum, so part of the basket is familiar AI exposure rather than quantum specialists.
• Distributions come quarterly, but a growth theme like this is not built around income.

Full AIFD profile⁠

Full QTUM profile⁠