The realm of artificial intelligence (AI) has easily become one of the most prominent investment themes of 2024, with global stock markets recording their best first-quarter performance in five years amid a wave of enthusiasm for US tech stocks. Investors have been piling into major tech stocks such as Nvidia, causing it to surge 88pc so far this year and pushing its market value to a record-breaking $2.3 trillion (£1.8 trillion). The recent tech rally is in part due to strong financial results for Silicon Valley behemoths such as Facebook owner Meta, which announced in February that it will pay up to $50bn to shareholders after reporting record revenues and a steep 200pc rise in profits. Some are even saying that today’s tech giants could start to rival long-established oil and pharmaceutical conglomerates for the vast amount of money they generate shareholders. What’s more, some investment trusts have more than a fifth of their money in the Magnificent Seven US tech stars such as Nvidia, Amazon and Microsoft and the trusts with the highest exposure have tended to outperform over the past year. This is thanks to a doubling in the cumulative value of the seven stocks. For example, the...