US markets are home to the world’s hyperscalers, chip makers and neocloud companies at the forefront of the AI revolution.
But that doesn’t mean investors in UK-listed equities can’t get a piece of the action by selecting companies exposed to AI’s expansion. In many cases, this exposure comes via diversified business models that are increasingly benefiting from AI.
We look at three FTSE 100 companies that offer investors the opportunity to capitalise on the boom in AI adoption.
Rolls-Royce
We all know Rolls-Royce as an engine maker, but the FTSE 100 firm also offers one of the more compelling and arguably underappreciated routes to AI exposure in the London market through its power business, which is set to expand with the rollout of its small modular reactor (SMR) business.
Each Rolls-Royce SMR is designed to generate 470MW of low-carbon baseload power, equivalent to around 150 onshore wind turbines and capable of running for at least 60 years, with components built in UK factories and assembled modularly on site to compress construction timelines.
With hyperscalers increasingly seeking dedicated, grid-independent clean power for AI training and inference workloads, SMRs are emerging as a credible long-term solution to the energy bottleneck constraining data centre growth.
In the near term, Rolls-Royce already serves the hyperscale market through its diesel and gas generator portfolio, providing a current revenue stream from AI infrastructure as the SMR opportunity matures.
Rolls-Royce’s power business currently accounts for around 25% of its total revenue. It will be fascinating to see how this develops in the coming years.
Polar Capital Technology Trust
Polar Capital Technology Trust has positioned itself as one of the most concentrated plays on artificial intelligence available to UK retail investors.
Managed by Ben Rogoff since 2006, with Alastair Unwin as deputy, the trust has delivered NAV total returns of 744% over the past decade against its Dow Jones Global Technology benchmark return of 600%.
Over the past year alone, the NAV is up 62.75% versus a benchmark return of 31%, according to their latest fact sheet.
These gains are a direct result of their focus on AI. NVIDIA is the single largest position at 10.3% of assets, followed by Alphabet (6.2%), TSMC (5.4%), Apple (4.7%) and Broadcom (4.6%).
Meta, AMD, Microsoft, Samsung Electronics and KLA round out a top ten that accounts for 43.7% of the portfolio across 96 holdings.
Semiconductors and semiconductor equipment alone make up 37.3% of sector exposure, with electronic equipment and tech hardware adding a further 22.3%.
Having had the pleasure of speaking with the managers of the FTSE 100 investment trust, we know they live and breathe artificial intelligence and are attuned to the industry’s changing face. The results speak for themselves.
SEGRO
SEGRO, the purveyor of big box warehouses, may not jump immediately to mind as a way to play AI. But these spaces are increasingly being taken up by data centre firms, which is helping to drive growth.
SEGRO has made significant strides in its data centre strategy during the first quarter of 2026, signing a 30,000 sq m powered shell pre-let on the Slough Trading Estate and securing planning approval for its first fully fitted data centre, a 56MW facility in West London.
The group is also progressing infrastructure works ahead of a major power upgrade in Slough, reinforcing its position as a critical landlord for the AI and cloud computing infrastructure boom. With hyperscaler demand for power-secured sites continuing to outstrip supply across Europe, SEGRO’s land bank in key digital hubs positions it as a strategic beneficiary of structural growth in compute capacity.
Beyond data centres, SEGRO reported a strong operational start to the year, with £23 million of new headline rent contracted, including £12 million from development lettings.