A PwC study quantifies the explosion of necessary investments, driven by digital transformation, the energy transition and demographic growth.
According to a study published Wednesday July 1 by the consulting and audit firm PwC France and Maghreb, global investments in infrastructure are expected to reach a cumulative $151,000 billion by 2050. This amount reflects an unprecedented acceleration in the need for structuring equipment on a planetary scale.
Growth driven by four major trends
Over the next quarter century, annual infrastructure investments are expected to increase from $4.4 trillion today to some $7 trillion in 2050, an increase of more than 50%. This explosion is driven by four major rushes: digital transformation and the rise of artificial intelligence, the energy transition imposed by climate change, demographic growth and urbanization in the non-Western world, and the reconfiguration of value and supply chains under the effect of the multiplication of geopolitical tensions.
The digital, energy and logistics industries are identified as the main drivers of this dynamic. Smart roads, reinforced electricity networks, modernized railway infrastructures, giant data centers powering artificial intelligence, energy systems in transformation: the world is entering a historic cycle of transformation of its infrastructures.
“Infrastructures have once again become an issue of sovereignty and competitiveness at a time when the great powers are returning, because they determine the energy and digital sovereignty of countries, their industrial competitiveness and the attractiveness of their territories,” explains Christophe Desgranges, member of the executive committee of PwC France and Maghreb.
The place occupied by digital infrastructures will continue to grow. Investments in data centers are expected to more than double in three years, going from 114 billion dollars in 2024 to 252 billion in 2027. This development will require rapid adaptation of energy infrastructures to power these data centers.
“Behind each technological revolution, there is an infrastructural revolution and AI cannot develop without energy, without robust networks and without adapted computing capacities,” underlines Christophe Desgranges.
With $76 billion invested in 2024, France represents 12% of the European infrastructure market and remains the third largest market on the continent behind Germany and the United Kingdom. France is “more in a phase of strategic modernization of its existing aging infrastructures than in a logic of massive expansion of new infrastructures”, notes PwC.
By 2050, annual French investments should reach $99 billion, an increase of 30%, but which will remain lower than the European dynamic (+45%). Among these investments, transport represents the first item with 789 billion dollars accumulated between 2025 and 2050, almost half of which for rail. Social infrastructure (schools, hospitals, nursing homes, etc.) are in second position, with a cumulative $665 billion. Finally, energy infrastructure represents nearly 218 billion.
Structural advantages and obstacles for France
France has assets, such as one of the most carbon-free energy mixes in the world and a recognized engineering base, but execution remains a black spot according to PwC. “Several structural obstacles persist”, estimates the study, which underlines “a high administrative and regulatory complexity, a fragmentation of decisions between public and territorial actors, significant budgetary constraints and increasing tensions on skills and implementation capacities”.
