With US$474B sought globally, managers chase AI data centers, secondaries liquidity and energy mandates.
Infrastructure fundraising has shifted from drought to deluge in just two years, as investors re-engage with the asset class on the back of surging demand for data centers and accelerating energy-transition spending.
The newly released Infrastructure Outlook 2026 from With Intelligence by S&P Global shows the sector rebounding sharply in 2025 after a weak 2024, as large flagship funds returned to market and allocators increased commitments to strategies tied to power, digital infrastructure and liquidity solutions.
That shift is visible in the fundraising numbers. The report estimates US$474 billion is currently being sought by closed-ended infrastructure funds globally, with $143 billion of that attributable to the top 10 managers.
“Infrastructure is set for another year of sustained momentum, following a strong rebound in fundraising in 2025, which more than doubled the previous year’s total,” said Viola Caon, global infrastructure research lead at With Intelligence.
“A confluence of megatrends, including AI-driven data center expansion and energy transition, are helping to drive this growth, but we’re also seeing increased interest in infrastructure investments as source of liquidity and portfolio protection amid market volatility.”
The outlook describes a market where capital is consolidating among large managers even as new firms try to break through. Infrastructure fundraising rose from $99 billion in 2024, a six-year low, to more than $250 billion in 2025, excluding co-investments, which the report says marked the strongest year since 2015 and was helped by several funds larger than $10 billion reaching a close.
Even with that concentration, emerging managers are still coming to market. With Intelligence tracked 15 new managers seeking more than $11 billion in the final quarter of 2025, with many positioned as value-add strategies.
Data centers: the AI trade meets physical constraints
Digital infrastructure, especially data centers, is central to the current fundraising pitch. The report notes that investor demand for funds with data center exposure should remain a key growth driver in 2026, as managers and LPs look to benefit from the AI boom and the need for physical assets that support it.
The scale is striking. Since 2020, With Intelligence has tracked 144 real asset funds with data center exposure targeting nearly $200 billion, and it reports a record 604 data centers built in 2024.
Still, the outlook flags a critical risk that investment committees are increasingly focused on: power. It notes that constraints on electricity supply are viewed as the most significant limitation on data centers, alongside energy intensity and building regulations in Europe and the U.S. It also points to oversupply risk in China and other APAC countries.
Energy transition demand accelerates
Alongside digital infrastructure, energy transition strategies continue to pull in mandates. Allocator demand for energy-transition fund mandates increased from $1 billion in 2024 to $3 billion in 2025, and the report shows expectation that momentum will persist in 2026 as incentives and geopolitics drive projects.
The outlook also notes a geographic reshuffling in fundraising talent, highlighting Southern Europe as an increasingly attractive base for managers supported by favorable tax regimes and government energy transition programs. It cites Italy’s MACSE subsidy mechanism and Spain’s developing transition market as part of the opportunity set.
Infrastructure secondaries are also climbing the agenda as investors look for ways to generate liquidity and rebalance exposures without exiting the asset class entirely.
The report describes secondaries as moving toward strategic allocations and reports a record $30 billion combined GP- and LP-led volume in 2025, alongside a tripling in the share of infrastructure secondary mandates over the last year.
In a market shaped by volatility and policy uncertainty, that evolution may matter as much as the fundraising rebound itself. The message from the 2026 outlook is that infrastructure is no longer being sold solely as long-duration cash flows; it’s increasingly being positioned as a flexible allocation tied to the power-and-compute buildout, decarbonization pipelines and, crucially, liquidity management.
