Private infrastructure and real estate capital are set to play an increasingly central role in financing the rapidly expanding artificial intelligence-driven data center buildout, as technology companies move beyond traditional funding sources, Goldman Sachs said in a recent note.
The Wall Street bank has also revised its outlook for capital expenditure across the four major hyperscalers—Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet—raising its combined forecast to $5.3 trillion between fiscal years 2025 and 2030. This marks a significant increase from its earlier estimate of $4.5 trillion, issued prior to first-quarter earnings.
According to Goldman, the scale of investment required to support AI infrastructure growth will compel companies to diversify their financing strategies, increasingly drawing on public markets, securitized instruments, and private capital pools to meet long-term funding needs.
A key theme highlighted in the report is the growing importance of private infrastructure and real estate capital, which the firm expects will assume an even larger role in the coming years.
Rising Role of Private Capital in AI Infrastructure
Goldman noted that the traditional boundaries between infrastructure and real estate are becoming less distinct, particularly as data center development increasingly spans multiple components such as land acquisition, energy provisioning, construction, and specialized equipment.
The bank also pointed to the structural characteristics of infrastructure investments—namely their predictable income streams and inflation-hedging qualities—as factors likely to attract sustained investor interest. These attributes, it said, position the asset class favorably amid rising demand for long-duration, stable-return investments.
“Infrastructure sits at the epicenter of multiple structural tailwinds, which we expect will drive its growth and provide additional capacity for financing,” Goldman said in its note, underscoring the sector’s expanding strategic importance in the AI era.
Structural Growth Outlook for Infrastructure Markets
Between 2021 and 2024, the private infrastructure market grew at an annualized rate of approximately 11.5%, according to the bank.
Looking ahead, Goldman expects this momentum to accelerate, with growth potentially returning to the 16%–17% annualized levels seen in the 2012–2021 period.
If this trajectory holds, total infrastructure assets under management could surpass $3 trillion by 2030, reflecting both rising institutional allocation and increasing demand for large-scale AI-related physical infrastructure.
Overall, Goldman’s outlook suggests that the financing of the AI infrastructure boom will increasingly depend on a broader ecosystem of capital providers, with private infrastructure and real estate emerging as critical pillars in supporting the next phase of digital expansion.
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