The $2.3 trillion fund, managed by Norges Bank Investment Management, returned 11.5% in the second quarter, according to a statement Wednesday. It was the best result since the second quarter of 2020.
Equity investments drove the gains, with 16% return, while fixed income contributed 1.1%. Unlisted real estate and infrastructure investments both returned 1.8% in the quarter.
The fund owns about 1.5% of all listed stocks globally and has become one of the world’s biggest investors in artificial intelligence-linked companies. Nvidia Corp. remained the fund’s biggest holding as of the end of the first half, followed by Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc.
“Chips drive fund’s value on a scale not seen before,” Chief Executive Officer Nicolai Tangen told a news conference in Arendal, southern Norway.
Explainer: What Next for Norway’s $2 Trillion Wealth Fund?
Set up in the 1990s, the fund invests proceeds from Norway’s oil and gas industry after the Nordic nation discovered the fossil deposits in the late 1960s. Transfers from the fund, limited annually at 3% of its size, contribute about a fourth of Norway’s budget spending.
The first-half return was 9.4%, beating the fund’s benchmark index by 22 basis points. The performance, driven by telecommunications, technology and energy, was an all-time high for a six-month period when measured in kroner. Tech stocks, led by AI-related companies, were also the biggest driver of the full-year return of 15.1% return in 2025.
The ten biggest holdings make up 20% of the fund’s value, with US investments accounting for 55%, Tangen said. He reiterated that as a broad-based index fund, the options to mitigate concentration risks remain limited.
Earlier this year, the fund was told by an advisory panel to raise its preparedness to handle growing geopolitical risk, including in the US. It’s not allowed to invest in private equity.
The fund is mandated by Norway’s Finance Ministry to closely track a benchmark index, with only limited scope to deviate through active management. Most of its performance therefore reflects movements in global equity and bond markets rather than discretionary stock picking.
The results come as the fund remains at the center of a domestic political debate over its ethical guidelines and its investments in companies involved in Israel’s war in Gaza. The fund remains invested in 29 Israeli companies, which all meet its ethical guidelines, Carine Smith Ihenacho, chief corporate governance officer, told the same news conference.
Norway’s parliament last year ordered a review of the ethical guidelines governing the sovereign wealth fund, temporarily suspending company exclusions while a committee examines whether the rules should be changed. The review, requested by Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg, is due to conclude by Oct. 15.
NBIM has also expanded its own use of artificial intelligence internally, deploying large language models to screen newly added portfolio companies for governance, corruption and human-rights risks, to complement traditional monitoring.
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(Updates with CEO comments from fifth paragraph.)
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