Modern economic growth has been built largely on infrastructure. Railroads and highways ignited industry and connected communities. Ports enabled global trade. Power grids and pipelines energized countless homes and businesses. Broadband and fiber optics transformed communication. Across these eras and others, the foresight to commit capital to promising technologies — long before the full scale of their impact emerged — has been essential to powering progress.
Today, the world stands before a new era of infrastructure investment with similarly powerful potential: data centers and the energy required to run them. But where is this new era heading? To get a clearer read on the market outlook, Vinson & Elkins surveyed 200 senior infrastructure developers and private capital investors, asking about prospects for growth, challenges that could impede it and solutions for sustaining momentum.
The bull case is intact, but power constraints lurk
