While the world is coming together to help combat the spread of the coronavirus, the disruptive technology space is uniting in its own right by utilizing artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning, analytics, and other disruptive tech tools to minimize the effects of the outbreak.
With the introduction of the latest stimulus package under U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, it will also take a concerted effort outside of government intervention. That also means working hand in hand with the government to prevent another pandemic in the future.
“While agencies have spent a considerable amount of time fielding artificial intelligence for projects much less ambitious than a global pandemic, AI and other tools such as supercomputing and advanced data analytics will play a significant, if not understated role, in the Trump administration’s long-term response to COVID-19, the disease caused by this strain of the virus,” an article in the Federal News Network noted.
Case in point—one company, Anodot, launched a public service that involves an analytics dashboard that uses machine learning to monitor locally reported COVID-19 cases, and then sends an alert to users when data from a certain region changes drastically.
“AI is actually playing a significant role in addressing the challenges, most immediately processing data, developing predictive models when the data is coming in from diverse sources, trying to get some harmony in that data, despite the quantity and diversity coming from all over the world,” said William Scherlis, the director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Information Innovation Office.
More innovation comes as virus containment remains a high priority. As such, investors looking for a broad ETF play in disruptive technology can look at the ARK Innovation ETF (NYSEArca: ARKK). The actively-managed ETF seeks to provide investors with:
- Exposure to Innovation: Aims for thematic multi-cap exposure to innovation across sectors. ARK believes the securities held in ARKK present the best risk-reward opportunities from ARK’s innovation-based themes.
- Growth Potential: Aims to capture long-term alpha+ with a low correlation of relative returns to traditional growth strategies and negative correlation to value strategies.
- Diversification: Offers a tool for diversification due to little overlap with traditional indices. It can be a complement to traditional value/growth strategies.
- Research: Combines top-down and bottom-up research in its portfolio management to identify innovative companies and convergence across markets.
- Cost-Effectiveness: Provides a lower-cost alternative to mutual funds with true active management in an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) that invests in rapidly moving themes.
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