Mai 2026
PWC (43 pages).
By 2050, the world will be increasingly dependent on electrification, data, automation, and circular resource flows. And infrastructure will no longer be defined solely by isolated physical assets like roads, grids, or plants. It will span the digital, environmental, industrial, and social systems that underpin productivity and human well-being. Importantly, these systems will all be interconnected — and they will rely on one another for smooth functioning.
New energy and digital assets will scale rapidly, accelerating the application of AI computing hubs and high-density data centres, carbon capture networks, and microgrids that give users real-time control over reliability and cost. Roads will carry autonomous vehicles and embed abilities like dynamic pricing and wireless charging. Airports will function as predictive, intermodal hubs that manage vast fleets of drones and autonomous, electrified aircraft. Businesses will run automated, just -in-time supply networks powered by clean
energy and secure computing. Systems will anticipate needs, allocate resources dynamically, and optimise performance — delivering structural productivity gains across every sector. The impact on communities will be significant, giving people more time to do the things they love. That may sound like a lot to expect from the global network of roads, power plants, ports, buildings, and data centres. After all, parts of this network are ageing and in obvious need of repairs and modernisation.
But the world requires nothing less from its built environment. Big changes are afoot in the coming 25 years. A projected 1.8 billion more people will live in cities by 2050 — mostly in the Asia-Pacific region and Africa — and the number of megacities worldwide will nearly double. Climate impacts will test resilience and expose vulnerabilities in transport, energy, and
urban systems. The rise of AI, cloud computing, and data-driven services will fundamentally reshape infrastructure needs. And as this Outlook is being written, recent developments in the Middle East are reinforcing how quickly geopolitical shocks can reshape infrastructure priorities. Disruptions to energy flows, shipping routes, and critical industrial inputs highlight the importance of resilience, redundancy, and security alongside efficiency, affordability, and decarbonisation.
That’s why PwC commissioned Oxford Economics to produce a new forecast model for infrastructure. Drawing on the last 20 years of spending data, our Global Infrastructure Outlook 2025–50 uses macro modelling engines, calibrated to today’s geopolitical and economic realities. The Outlook covers nine sectors and 20 subsectors in 45 countries and territories, recognising the evolution of infrastructure over the past decade — think power storage and data centres — and the heightened importance of sectors such as defence infrastructure and the transmission and distribution infrastructure needed to support the AI revolution.
The result? The most comprehensive, market-ready global infrastructure forecast available, designed to help investors, policymakers, and industry leaders identify and seize opportunities sooner and with far greater precision.
In the period covered by our Outlook, global annual spending is forecast to rise from $4.4 trillion in 2024 to $6.9 trillion in 2050 — representing a cumulative total of $151.1 trillion over 25 years.
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