Public Pension AI Exposure: Top 25 Funds Hold Up to $707B

Equable Institute said on 4 November that the 25 largest US public pension funds held between $578.1 billion and $706.6 billion in AI-related companies at 30 June 2026, based on the funds' SEC Form 13F filings. That is 9% to 11% of the $6.42 trillion in state and local pension assets.

The exposure sits on plans that Equable's own October update put at 86.0% funded at 30 September, the highest since 2007.

Key Takeaways

The Magnificent Seven hold 63.3% of the public AI-related holdings, and the 51 largest publicly traded names were 35.1% of all public equity the funds reported.
Colorado PERA carries the highest share of assets in the basket at 18.7% ($14.3 billion); CalPERS carries the largest dollar amount at $65.2 billion, or 10.4% of assets.
Arithmetic on the published figures: a 30% fall in the $642 billion midpoint is about $193 billion, roughly 22% of Milliman's $877 billion deficit for the 100 largest plans.
Contribution rates are set on today's asset values, Equable's Anthony Randazzo told The Bond Buyer, so overstated AI valuations mean larger unfunded liabilities than the 86.0% national funded ratio implies.

What the filings show

Equable's basket spans chips, chip equipment, software, data center infrastructure and power, the institute's media brief says. The release puts the 35.1% figure on the 51 largest publicly traded AI-related companies. The brief's basket runs to 52, the addition being SpaceX, which listed in the second quarter; the funds covered reported $4.1 billion in SpaceX shares in their first 13F filings after the IPO. NVIDIA at $47.3 billion, Apple at $42.5 billion and Microsoft at $28.2 billion are the largest holdings.

Equable calls the range a lower bound because it does not fully count private equity, corporate debt or private debt in AI companies. The $706.6 billion upper estimate splits into $396 billion of stock that 24 of the 25 funds report directly, about $180 billion of public stock not reported in detail and about $130 billion of private equity and corporate debt, the release says.

For the 16 to 20 funds reporting in each quarter, the basket's share of 13F public equity rose from 20.7% in the first quarter of 2020 to 38.5% at 30 June 2026 without projection. The 35.1% headline figure includes projections for five funds. PLANSPONSOR reported on 9 November that about 85% of the holdings sit in 15 companies. The seven account for 63.3%. Broadcom, Micron, AMD, Intel, Lam Research, Applied Materials, KLA and SpaceX account for about 21.8%.

The ranking by share of assets runs from Colorado PERA at 18.7% to the University of California at 1.4%. Among the larger funds, Texas TRS sits at 5.3% and Washington SIB at 2.5%. Equable notes that Washington's 13F covers only a few direct positions.

For funds that do not file 13Fs, Equable projected exposure from their published holdings lists; three funds disclose only their top ten holdings, so their figures understate exposure, and North Carolina, which publishes no name-level holdings, is excluded.

Rank	Fund	Share of assets	AI holdings, $bn
1	Colorado PERA	18.7%	14.3
2	Minnesota SBI	17.4%	18.6
3	NYC Pension Funds	14.8%	42.5
4	NYSTRS	14.6%	23.8
5	New York Common	11.5%	34.1
6	Florida SBA	11.1%	26.3
7	Wisconsin SWIB	11.1%	16.5
8	CalSTRS	11.0%	46.2
9	Ohio PERS	10.7%	12.7
10	CalPERS	10.4%	65.2

Sources: Equable Institute, as reported by PLANSPONSOR, as of 30 June 2026. NYC Pension Funds projected to 30 June from the last reported holdings (Equable media brief).

CalPERS, with assets of $655 billion, spent part of its September board meeting on AI, CalMatters reported. Chief investment officer Stephen Gilmore told the board the future holds a "very wide distribution of possible outcomes" for the technology.

Contribution rates ride on the same valuations

Anthony Randazzo, Equable's executive director, told The Bond Buyer in August that contribution rates depend on current asset values relative to liabilities. If AI assets are overstated, unfunded liabilities are larger than reported, he said. "Even if there's not a massive AI bubble, if there's overvaluation of AI companies today, there's reason to be concerned," he said.

Douglas Offerman, a senior director at Fitch Ratings, told the paper the gains cut both ways. "It's great for pensions insofar as valuations improve," he said. If the valuations prove wrong, actuarially determined contributions would rise, though the effect would be gradual, he said. Tom Kozlik, head of public policy and municipal strategy at Hilltop Securities, said the risk is "a combination of the concentrated allocation" to one subsector "but also to equities in general."

Milliman's Public Pension Funding Index gives a scale for the second half of Kozlik's point: one month of ordinary equity weakness moved the deficit of the 100 largest public plans by $112 billion. Those plans returned an aggregate -1.4% in September 2026, with individual plans between -3.4% and -0.5%, Milliman said on 28 October.

Assets fell from $6.162 trillion to $6.067 trillion while liabilities rose from $6.927 trillion to $6.944 trillion. The funded ratio fell from 89.0% to 87.4% and the deficit grew from $765 billion to $877 billion. The number of plans above 90% funded fell from 51 to 47 and the number below 60% rose from 10 to 11. The median assumed return stayed at 7.0%.

Equable's range gives a scale against Milliman's totals. Its midpoint is about $642 billion. A 30% fall in those holdings alone would be about $193 billion. That is roughly 22% of Milliman's $877 billion deficit at 30 September, before any move in the other 89% to 91% of assets. The sum is arithmetic on two published totals. The 13F positions it starts from date from 30 June.

Funded ratios at the end of September

Equable's October update, written by Randazzo and Jonathan Moody, raised the 2026 national funded ratio estimate from the 85.0% published in July to 86.0%. The revision uses return data through 30 September; the 2025 ratio was restated to 81.23%. Unfunded liabilities fell to an estimated $1.06 trillion from $1.36 trillion, the third straight annual decline and the first run of three since the financial crisis. The 126 plans with preliminary full-year actuals averaged a 13.78% return. Adding benchmark estimates for the other 127 brings the average to 11.39%, against an average assumed rate of 6.88%.

The same document names the source of the gains. Equity returns "have been concentrated in a narrow set of companies related to artificial intelligence," it says, and pension portfolios are exposed through both public stock and private market investments. A sharp correction could reverse the gains "quickly, as they did in 2022." Equable expects the national average to improve further by December unless the fourth quarter brings a sharp downturn. "Public pension funds today are recovering, but they are not yet secure," the authors write.

In the 4 November release Randazzo said every public pension fund "should be doing an internal audit of their own AI-exposure and making public the findings." The third-quarter 13F filings show each fund's positions at 30 September, the date of Milliman's 87.4% reading. They are due at the SEC within 45 days of the quarter's end, which is 14 November.

Top 25 Public Pensions Hold Up to $707B in AI Stocks, Equable Finds

Key Takeaways

What the filings show

Contribution rates ride on the same valuations

Funded ratios at the end of September

Further Reading

Sources

Top 25 Public Pensions Hold Up to $707B in AI Stocks, Equable Finds

Key Takeaways

What the filings show

Contribution rates ride on the same valuations

Funded ratios at the end of September

Further Reading

Related guides

Sources