GLOBAL financing for artificial intelligence infrastructure is set to undergo a major structural shift, with private infrastructure and real estate capital expected to take on a significantly larger role in supporting the rapid expansion of AI-driven data centres, Goldman Sachs said.
In a note released on Tuesday, the investment bank said the scale of investment required by the world’s largest technology firms is pushing the sector beyond traditional funding models, into a broader mix of public markets, securitised instruments and private capital structures.
Reuters reported Goldman raised its combined capital expenditure forecast for the four major hyperscalers — Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet — to US$5.3 trillion between fiscal years 2025 and 2030, a substantial upward revision from its previous estimate of US$4.5 trillion.
The bank said the surge reflects accelerating demand for computing capacity driven by artificial intelligence, cloud expansion and digital infrastructure build-out across global markets.
“Private infrastructure and real estate will play an even larger role in the years ahead,” Goldman said.
It noted that the boundaries between infrastructure and real estate financing are becoming increasingly blurred as data centre developments now span land acquisition, energy provisioning, building construction and high-value technical equipment.
Goldman added that infrastructure assets are benefiting from structural advantages, including stable income streams and inflation-hedging characteristics, making them increasingly attractive to long-term institutional investors.
“Infrastructure sits at the epicentre of multiple structural tailwinds, which we expect will drive its growth and provide additional capacity for financing,” the bank said.
The report highlighted that the private infrastructure market expanded at an annualised rate of around 11.5 per cent between 2021 and 2024, with Goldman expecting further acceleration in the years ahead.
Growth could potentially return to the stronger 16 to 17 per cent annualised levels seen between 2012 and 2021, the bank said, driven by sustained demand for digital and energy infrastructure.
If that trajectory materialises, total infrastructure assets under management could exceed US$3 trillion by 2030, underscoring the scale of capital mobilisation required to support AI-related expansion.
The analysis suggests that as artificial intelligence reshapes global computing needs, private capital markets are likely to become increasingly central to financing the physical backbone of the digital economy, particularly large-scale data centre ecosystems. - June 3, 2026
