GPIF remains the largest public pension fund globally. Assets stood at ¥299.8 trillion at 31 March 2026, or about $1.9 trillion. The policy mix effective 1 April 2025 allocates 25 per cent each to domestic bonds, foreign bonds, domestic equities and foreign equities. Deviation bands are plus or minus 6 per cent on domestic bonds, domestic equities and foreign equities, and plus or minus 5 per cent on foreign bonds. Aggregate bond and equity exposures each carry a plus or minus 9 per cent band.

Alternatives are not established as a separate policy class. Private equity, infrastructure and real estate are held within the four listed boxes and may not exceed 5 per cent of total assets. That ceiling is the operative constraint for external managers. Access to GPIF’s unlisted book is a question of fit inside an existing listed sleeve, not of a new alternatives programme.

The portfolio at the March year-end was close to policy. Domestic bonds were 26.9 per cent (¥80.7 trillion). Foreign bonds were 24.5 per cent (¥73.4 trillion). Domestic equities were 23.8 per cent (¥71.4 trillion). Foreign equities were 24.8 per cent (¥74.4 trillion). The practical requirement is therefore completion and rebalancing: instruments that can be sized, that track within the published bands, and that do not require a rewrite of the medium-term plan. Foreign-bond implementation and a limited number of private-market commitments inside the 5 per cent cap sit inside that requirement. A large, standalone unlisted sleeve does not.

NPS operates under a different 2026 annual plan. The published strategic mix is 20.8 per cent domestic equities, 34.7 per cent foreign equities, 23.1 per cent domestic fixed income, 7.4 per cent foreign fixed income and 14.0 per cent alternatives. Alternatives are specified as private equity, infrastructure, real estate and private debt. Equities account for 55.5 per cent of the target book. Fixed income accounts for 30.5 per cent. The unlisted allocation is a named sleeve rather than a cap inside listed beta.

The difference is material for institutional coverage. A private-credit or infrastructure strategy that is residual inside GPIF’s 5 per cent limit is a line item inside NPS’s 14 per cent sleeve. Foreign-equity policy weight is the second divergence. GPIF’s target is 25 per cent. NPS has set 34.7 per cent. Global equity and completion product that is mid-sized relative to GPIF’s foreign-equity box is a larger share of NPS’s risk budget.

The two structures also imply different implementation. GPIF’s four-box design privileges liquidity, benchmark awareness and the ability to stay inside published bands. NPS’s 2026 plan privileges sleeve construction: how private debt, infrastructure and private equity sit beside a higher equity weight without breaching total-fund risk limits. Treating the two as a single “APAC pension alternatives” allocation obscures both constraints.

Comparison is valid only on policy weights and disclosed caps. Legal mandate, governance and total assets are not equivalent. GPIF is a reserve-style public pension operating under a published medium-term plan. NPS runs a national-pension SAA with its own annual process. Aggregation charts that collapse those facts into one regional average are not a substitute for the two mixes.

For peer asset-allocation desks, the distinction is diagnostic. A fund whose alternatives still live inside listed boxes is closer to GPIF’s constraint set. A fund that has already created a double-digit unlisted sleeve including private debt is closer to NPS. External product, fee budgets and co-invest capacity follow from that diagnosis, not from the shared label of East Asian public pension.