Consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) estimated that investment spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure will reach 31.6 trillion dollars (27.2 trillion euros) by 2050, according to the Global Data Centre report. The document, which covers 46 countries and territories, predicts that annual investment in data centers will go from approximately 800 billion dollars in 2026 to 1.8 trillion dollars in 2050.
The United States is expected to absorb 48% of total investment in AI infrastructure, equivalent to 15.1 trillion dollars. The Asia-Pacific region is projected to represent 8.2 trillion dollars in cumulative investments, led by China and India, while sovereign AI strategies are accelerating investment in Europe and the Middle East. Information and communication technology equipment will represent a growing share of investment, rising from 70% currently to 93% by 2050.
The report identified five factors that will direct the global investment flow: energy, connectivity, security, political certainty, community consent, and access to graphics processing units. PwC Australia's Global Infrastructure Leader, Clara Cutajar, stated that AI infrastructure is becoming one of the main capital allocation challenges of the next generation.
PwC also tested two scenarios. In the first, tighter export controls would disrupt global chip supply chains, reducing annual investment to roughly half by 2030. In the second scenario, a greater emphasis on digital sovereignty would alter how capital is invested, with global spending decreasing only slightly, but investment shifting to countries with strong domestic demand and underdeveloped data center capacity.
