• 6 min read • Author: Fabian Dawson • Print • Privacy & Disclaimer

AI, Cybersecurity, and Digital Assets Will Converge on Trust and Scale in 2026

The final part of our year-ender series tracks how investor priorities narrowed across AI, cybersecurity, and digital assets, and why systems that support scale, trust, and regulation are now at the centre of the trade.

In 2025, a thematic investment approach took shape across AI, cybersecurity, and digital assets, as capital moved toward the systems that had to be built, defended, and governed to support a digital economy.

These technologies are not housed within a single formal sector. AI cuts horizontally across software and infrastructure, cybersecurity sits within IT services and software, and digital assets straddle financial services, infrastructure, and payments. Yet over the past year, they increasingly moved together, driven by the same pressures of scale, exposure, and institutional accountability.

What linked them was necessity. AI required massive compute and data infrastructure. Cyber threats forced organizations to protect increasingly valuable digital systems. Digital assets entered a phase where credibility depended on regulation, custody, and security. The common denominator was not innovation cycles, but the cost and complexity of operating trusted digital systems at scale.

“These aren’t separate bets anymore. Infrastructure, security, and custody are the plumbing of the digital economy, and that’s where capital is concentrating,” said Ryan Iverson, Portfolio Manager of CEM Partner’s Fund.

AI: Adoption Scaled, Economics Caught Up

AI spending continued to rise in 2025, but the gap between deployment and monetization widened. Enterprise adoption spread across industries, yet only a relatively small group of companies translated that uptake into material profit impact. McKinsey’s State of AI 2025 highlights this divide, showing value capture concentrated among firms with mature data foundations, governance discipline, and cost control, rather than those simply rolling out new models.

At the macro level, AI-linked capital expenditure emerged as a visible economic driver. Data centres, cloud infrastructure, and semiconductor demand featured prominently in institutional outlooks through 2025, supporting growth even as equity markets grew more selective. Infrastructure and data optimization generally held investor interest, while many application-layer companies faced valuation pressure as enthusiasm cooled and operating costs became clearer.

Looking into 2026, AI deployment is expected to continue expanding, but the focus is shifting decisively toward efficiency. TechInsights’ AI Outlook Report 2026 points to a move away from brute-force scaling toward optimized architectures, edge deployment, and improved utilization of existing capacity. Macro strategists still view AI as a structural growth tailwind in the U.S. and parts of Asia, but investor scrutiny has sharpened. Platforms that can convert sustained demand into predictable margins are increasingly favoured, while overconcentration and energy intensity remain key risks.

Cybersecurity: Essential Spend in a Higher-Risk Economy

Cybersecurity stood out in 2025 as one of the most resilient growth areas. Estimates from MarketsandMarkets and Fortune Business Insights placed global spending roughly between USD $230 billion and USD $300 billion, expanding at high-single to low-double-digit rates despite broader market volatility.

The drivers were structural, not cyclical. AI-enabled attacks increased in speed and sophistication, cloud environments widened exposure, and regulators imposed clearer accountability on boards and senior management. As a result, spending shifted toward protecting core systems rather than experimenting at the margins. Demand strengthened for managed services, identity and access management, continuous monitoring, and protection of operational and industrial technology, where downtime and breaches carry immediate financial and regulatory consequences.

That momentum is expected to carry into 2026. Precedence Research projects cybersecurity revenue rising from roughly USD $302 billion in 2025 to about USD $340 billion in 2026, with a longer-term path toward nearly USD $880 billion by 2034. Regulatory pressure, hybrid cloud complexity, and persistent threat escalation are likely to keep security budgets growing faster than overall IT spend. From an investment standpoint, interest is concentrated around providers tied to compliance, critical infrastructure protection, and outsourced security services, where revenue is recurring and less sensitive to economic slowdowns.

Digital Assets: From Volatility Toward Institutional Footing

Digital assets finished 2025 in a more structured position than they entered it, despite continued price swings. Nasdaq’s Crypto Market 2025 Year-End Review characterizes the year as a volatile reset, with excess leverage reduced, and speculative activity cooling, even as institutional participation deepened.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs marked a significant structural shift, steadily absorbing a meaningful share of circulating supply and anchoring crypto exposure within regulated investment vehicles. Alongside this, stablecoins, tokenized cash, and securities gained traction in real-world use cases, such as payments and settlement, supporting activity even as broader market sentiment softened later in the year.

Looking ahead, 2026 is increasingly framed as a maturation phase rather than a renewed speculative cycle. ETF flows, real-world asset tokenization, and on-chain derivatives continue to expand usage, but volatility remains part of the landscape. Policy-focused analysis from TRM Labs underscores how clearer regulatory frameworks in major jurisdictions are enabling deeper institutional engagement. As governance structures solidify, capital is flowing toward custody, compliance, payments, and settlement infrastructure, favouring platforms built around trust and integration with traditional finance over those reliant on high-frequency trading alone.

Taken together, the three companies below, identified by Investor Breakout Exchange participants at CEM events in 2025, illustrate how the converged AI, cybersecurity, and digital-asset theme is becoming investable. Each reflects a different layer of the same shift toward infrastructure, security, and governance.

Edge Total Intelligence Inc. 

Edge Total Intelligence (TSX-V: CTRL) operates where AI stops being a lab exercise and starts running real systems. Its edgeCore™ platform pulls real-time data from multiple sources and turns it into secure digital twins that support decisions in complex, high-risk environments. This is AI built for uptime and accountability, not experimentation.

That focus became more pronounced in 2025 as EdgeTI deepened its work in defense and industrial modernization. Through its expanded partnership with Sabel Systems and assets tied to Austal USA programs, the company targeted naval shipyards, defense manufacturing, and field operations. These are environments where AI has to keep working even when connectivity is degraded, systems are old, and audit requirements are unforgiving.

As Iverson puts it, EdgeTI highlights “where serious AI spend is going… it is less about experimentation and more about systems that can actually run complex operations, securely, and at scale.”

For investors, that distinction matters. EdgeTI isn’t competing on flashy models or generative features. Its value sits in acting as the operational layer between data, systems, and real-world outcomes, precisely where AI budgets are increasingly landing.

Neptune Digital Assets Corp. 

Neptune Digital Assets (TSX-V: NDA) reflects a much more grounded approach to crypto than the speculative cycles investors have grown wary of. As one of Canada’s earliest publicly listed blockchain companies, Neptune built its business around operating digital-asset infrastructure and generating yield, not chasing transaction volume.

By late 2025, Neptune had grown its Bitcoin treasury to more than CAD $70 million, accumulated through a mix of dollar-cost averaging, staking-to-Bitcoin conversion, selective derivatives, and mining. That diversified approach spreads risk across revenue streams while keeping assets under the company’s direct control through non-custodial operations.

Neptune also plays an active role inside proof-of-stake ecosystems by operating validation nodes across multiple networks. That positions it as an infrastructure operator within crypto, not just a balance-sheet holder exposed to price swings.

“Neptune is combining infrastructure, yield, and balance-sheet discipline in a way institutional investors increasingly prefer,” said Iverson.

WonderFi Technologies Inc.

WonderFi (TSX: WNDR) sits at the access point where digital assets meet regulated finance. Through platforms such as Bitbuy and Coinsquare, it provides custody, trading, staking, and payments within Canadian securities frameworks, serving both retail customers and institutions.

“As digital assets mature, access and governance matter more than speculation… platforms like WonderFi, built to operate under regulatory scrutiny, are increasingly where institutions are comfortable deploying capital,” said Iverson.

In 2025, that regulatory positioning translated into scale for WonderFi. Client assets under custody surpassed $2.3 billion, revenues grew sharply year over year, and the company progressed toward sustained positive adjusted EBITDA. With more than 1.7 million registered users and over $20 billion in lifetime trading volume, WonderFi has built meaningful reach at a time when compliance is becoming a competitive advantage.

The company is also expanding beyond centralized trading, developing on-chain infrastructure such as a Layer-2 blockchain and a global non-custodial wallet. That allows it to span regulated access and decentralized participation as traditional finance and crypto move closer together.

Investor Takeaway

Across AI, cybersecurity, and digital assets, investor focus has narrowed to a small set of hard questions. Can a business turn growing technical complexity into predictable revenue? Does it control or enable infrastructure that customers and institutions rely on? Are margins durable once energy costs, security requirements, and regulatory compliance are fully priced in? And does governance match the scale of AI risk, cyber exposure, and regulatory scrutiny now facing digital systems?

As 2025 draws to a close, the direction is clear. AI continues to reshape capital spending, cybersecurity remains essential to managing digital risk, and digital assets are pushing deeper into regulated financial systems. Together, they form a converged investment theme defined by infrastructure, security, and trust.

For investors heading into 2026, the opportunity is less about chasing momentum and more about identifying the systems that economies, markets, and institutions increasingly cannot operate without.

Warm Regards and Happy Investing,
Fabian Dawson

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