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A new Swiss Re Institute report has suggested that a global capital expenditure (capex) super-cycle, driven by surging investment in data centres, energy systems and other strategic infrastructure, could create one of the largest commercial property and casualty (P&C) opportunities for insurers in decades.
According to the report, AI data centres and renewable energy infrastructure alone could generate around $200 billion in premiums between 2026 and 2030.
“Global energy investment is expected to reach $3.4 trillion in 2026, with around $2.2 trillion directed towards renewables, nuclear, grids, storage, low-emissions fuels, efficiency and electrification. At the same time, the five largest US hyperscalers are expected to invest nearly $800 billion in AI-related capital expenditure in 2026, while estimates for global data-centre capex exceed $1 trillion,” the Swiss Re Institute explained.
According to the report, these investments are transforming data centres from information technology assets into strategic infrastructure.
The Swiss Re Institute noted that their power requirements are measured in gigawatts and their asset values in billions of dollars, while their operations depend on electricity, telecommunications, cooling systems and cloud infrastructure.
As this new infrastructure enters operation, insurers will face a growing volume of high-value property, business interruption and liability exposures.
“The shift creates significant insurance demand, but also new concentrations of risk,” the report noted.
Understanding these risks will be critical to unlocking insurance capacity. The Swiss Re Institute said the principal constraint is not the availability of insurance capital, but the ability to deploy it confidently against increasingly complex exposures.
The report continued, “Limited operating histories of these large infrastructure projects can make loss frequency and severity difficult to quantify, while accumulation and extreme loss potential complicate diversification and capacity deployment. The operational phase represents the next frontier for insurability.
“Construction risks are relatively well understood, while the commissioning of high-value equipment introduces greater property, business interruption, contingent business interruption and liability exposures. In some cases, financial losses from an interruption can exceed the physical damage itself. Insurance markets have repeatedly adapted to emerging risks, from nuclear power to cyber.
“For today’s larger and more interconnected infrastructure, it is vital to understand how risks can accumulate. Engineering-led underwriting, improved modelling and accumulation management can increase confidence in the underlying risk.
“Spreading those risks across insurers, reinsurers and capital markets can distribute large exposures across multiple balance sheets, helping to keep major infrastructure projects insurable and support the investment underpinning future economic growth.”
Gianfranco Lot, Swiss Re’s Chief Underwriting Officer, P&C Re, commented, “We are seeing the digital economy become a real economy. AI needs data centres, power grids and increasingly complex infrastructure – and all of it needs insurance.
“That creates growth opportunities across multiple lines of business, but also significant risk concentrations. The deployment of capacity will depend on our ability to understand and manage those, and getting paid for the associated tail risk.”
Jérôme Haegeli, Group Chief Economist and Head of Swiss Re Institute, said, “A new investment era is taking shape, with unprecedented amounts of capital flowing into the infrastructure that will power future economic growth.
“This also concentrates more value and creates new dependencies across power systems, supply chains and digital networks. Insurance is essential to making these investments resilient and financeable.”
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