Heading into 2026, infrastructure investors are recalibrating priorities amid rising geopolitical risk, mounting deployment pressure, and structural shifts toward digital and energy-transition assets.
According to Corey Lewis, managing director, North America Transaction Solutions at Aon, sentiment has moved decisively away from complacency and toward execution under constraint. He’s been explaining more to InvestmentNews about the factors driving the shift.
“Investor sentiment has shifted toward heightened geopolitical risk recognition, accelerated capital deployment pressure, and a structural reprioritization toward digital and energy-transition assets,” he says, noting that Aon’s survey data shows “32% of respondents identify geopolitical tension as the dominant driver of buy/sell appetite, and 68% cite it as the largest challenge to deploying capital.”
Despite macro uncertainty, optimism on pricing remains widespread. “92% still expect valuations to rise, driven primarily by deployment pressure from accumulated dry powder rather than improvement in fundamentals,” Lewis says. At the same time, sponsors are racing policy timelines. “Clean-energy sponsors are moving quickly to lock in IRA-adjacent incentives before policy pathways change, which has accelerated financing activity and pipeline build-out.”
That acceleration is particularly visible in digital assets. “Digital infrastructure, particularly data centers, is now the highest-priority subsector, reflecting unprecedented AI-driven load growth and constrained grid capacity,” he adds.
Why global capital keeps flowing to the US
Even as geopolitical risk intensifies globally, the US continues to attract disproportionate infrastructure capital which Lewis attributes to scale and liquidity advantages that remain unmatched elsewhere.
“The US maintains unmatched scale, liquidity, and project throughput. Market depth across digital, energy transition, midstream, and renewables continues to exceed other jurisdictions, he says. “Transferable tax credits have institutionalized a secondary market that reached $20bn of trading in H1 2025 and is expected to surpass $55bn for FY 2025, according to the capital markets technology company Crux Climate.”
Capital continues to arrive from abroad as well. “Cross-border inflows continue to rise, with 56% of our survey respondents citing Europe and 52% citing the UK as primary sources of capital.”
Uncertainty has created urgency, Lewis says. “Even with the uncertainty around the impact of the OBBBA, 48% of global investors reported increased appetite to invest in the US, driven by the desire to capture incentives before further policy recalibration and to acquire assets brought to market on compressed timelines,” he says. “Amid policy uncertainty, the US continues to offer the most efficient risk-adjusted environment for deploying large-scale infrastructure capital.”
Geopolitics moves from background noise to pricing input
Geopolitical fragmentation is no longer treated as a secondary consideration in underwriting. Lewis says it has become central to pricing and execution.
“Geopolitical fragmentation is now the single most disruptive force in infrastructure deployment,” he says. “It is increasing diligence timelines, altering supply-chain assumptions, and widening valuation dispersion.”
Critically, investors are now quantifying those risks. “Geopolitics is no longer a background variable; it is now being explicitly priced into required returns,” Lewis explains. Survey respondents point to “sanctions exposure, route disruption, and regulatory scrutiny, particularly around data centers and critical-infrastructure assets, as direct deal execution risks.”
Supply-chain instability is compounding the challenge. “Supply-chain instability in energy, grid equipment, and digital infrastructure is raising construction costs and elongating delivery schedules,” he says. As a result, “investors are selectively pricing geopolitical risk into required returns and, in some cases, avoiding regions where permitting, interconnection, or national-security review may introduce execution friction.”
IRA uncertainty fuels near-term acceleration
Potential changes tied to the OBBBA have not slowed activity, if anything, they have pulled development forward.
“OBBBA’s changes have not slowed development velocity in the near term,” Lewis says. “Renewable energy sponsors continue to accelerate construction to maintain eligibility, since projects that meet applicable beginning-of-construction requirements are able to take advantage of the four-year construction safe harbor to qualify for tax credits.”
Transferability remains a cornerstone of financing and “remains intact and the transfer market continues to scale despite policy recalibration,” he says, adding that “financing volume has surged as developers fast-track large utility-scale solar, co-located storage, and standalone storage projects.”
Lewis explains that investors are balancing certainty and risk, seeking to capture near-term incentive certainty while underwriting potential upside from tightening supply-demand dynamics in clean-energy build-out. However, caution is creeping into longer horizons:
AI demand redefines infrastructure priorities
Artificial intelligence has emerged as a dominant force reshaping infrastructure investment, particularly power and digital assets.
“AI has become a central demand determinant for power, land, and interconnection,” Lewis says. “Global electricity consumption from data centers is projected to more than double by 2030; US AI-driven demand could increase 30-fold by 2035, according to our report.”
That demand is already altering investor behavior. “This has elevated digital infrastructure to the top of investor priorities; 60% of report respondents rank it first among brownfield opportunities,” he notes. “Power availability, grid congestion, latency, and permitting timelines now materially influence valuation and site selection.”
As a result, Lewis says that utilities and independent power producers are responding by accelerating storage, flexible generation, and grid-reinforcement investments, creating convergent opportunities across both digital and energy-transition verticals.
Grid constraints become a value driver
Grid limitations are increasingly shaping both development timelines and M&A pricing. “Grid congestion is undermining delivery timelines for both renewable and digital-infrastructure development,” Lewis says. “Interconnection queues continue to expand, delaying COD schedules and reducing valuation certainty.”
Execution risk is rising for large platforms. “Large sponsors are concentrating on multi-gigawatt pipelines that require long-lead substation and transmission upgrades, increasing execution risk,” he explains. In transactions, uncertainty carries a direct cost: “For M&A, grid uncertainty forces buyers to discount assets with ambiguous interconnection rights or upgrade costs.”
AI demand is intensifying the strain. “Multi-hundred-MW loads are straining local grids, forcing utilities to reassess capacity allocations and, in some jurisdictions, pause new connections,” Lewis says. “In many cases, grid access is becoming as valuable as the underlying asset itself.”
Dry powder drives competition and pricing
Capital availability remains abundant, amplifying competition for high-quality assets. “According to our report, dry powder stands at roughly US$335bn, and fundraising in H1 2025 has already exceeded full-year 2024 levels,” Lewis says.
That pressure is flowing directly into valuations. “The pressure to deploy capital is the largest expected driver of valuation uplift over the next 12–24 months, with 40% of respondents identifying it as the principal factor.” While some deals remain negotiated, momentum is building. “Competitive tension is building around high-quality digital and energy-transition assets,” he says.
Looking ahead, “as deployment deadlines tighten, competitive bidding is expected to re-emerge, with sponsors willing to transact closer to full pricing for assets with strong fundamentals and clear regulatory visibility.”
The strongest valuation pressure is concentrated in sectors tied to power demand and connectivity. “Digital infrastructure is experiencing the sharpest upward valuation pressure, driven by hyperscale data-center demand and structural tailwinds in towers and fiber,” Lewis says.
Energy-transition assets are close behind. “Energy-transition assets—including storage, flexible generation, and midstream infrastructure supporting rising power loads—also show elevated pricing momentum.” Within these segments, selectivity is increasing. “Valuation dispersion is widening, with investors assigning materially higher multiples to assets that offer secure power access, predictable construction timelines, and clear permitting, interconnection, and policy visibility.”
Cyber and supply chain risk move into core diligence
“Cyber risk has escalated to a top operational concern,” Lewis says. “Our report revealed that 96% of investors conduct regular cybersecurity assessments and 40% apply them portfolio-wide.”
Supply chain exposure is now intertwined with cyber risk he notes: “Supply-chain vulnerabilities have also risen sharply and 24% cite supply-chain compromise as the primary cyber threat, up from 4% last year.” In response, “operators are expanding third-party risk management, segmenting operational-technology networks, and adopting more stringent regulatory compliance frameworks.”
Given expanding digital complexity, “cybersecurity is being priced into diligence with the same weight as physical resilience.”
Looking toward 2026
Looking further out, Lewis expects risk and opportunity to remain tightly linked.
“Geopolitical instability remains the top systemic risk, followed by climate-driven operational disruption and cyber intrusion,” he says. “Grid constraints and permitting delays will continue to slow deployment in both renewable and digital assets.”
At the same time, opportunity is scaling. “Accelerated AI power demand, expansion of the tax-credit transferability market, and scaled energy-transition investment will define deal flow.” Industry structure is also evolving. “Consolidation among large managers is expected to enhance liquidity, increase the size of available transactions, and expand co-investment pathways.”
Ultimately, Lewis says, the differentiator is no longer access to capital: “In 2026, execution capability, not capital availability, is expected to be the key differentiator among infrastructure investors.”
