2025 posted the highest infrastructure deal volumes on record. Overall infrastructure deal activity increased to US$1.56 trillion, up from US$1.12 trillion in 2024, representing growth of 39% year on year. Infrastructure debt volumes also increased, reaching US$1.05 trillion in 2025 compared with US$790 billion in 2024, an increase of 33%. Prior to 2025, the previous peak occurred in 2022, when overall infrastructure deal volumes totalled US$1.26 trillion and infrastructure debt volumes reached US$603 billion.
Infrastructure debt funds continue to represent a relatively small portion of the market, accounting for just 8.1% of total infrastructure assets under management as at Q1 2025. This dynamic is expected to create attractive opportunities for dedicated credit managers, particularly given that approximately US$322 billion of infrastructure equity dry powder remained as at the end of 2025. Ongoing public infrastructure funding deficits, combined with elevated levels of private equity dry powder, point to continued high levels of activity in 2026 across both private infrastructure equity and debt markets.
Key themes
Several structural themes are expected to underpin investment momentum,
- Sustained demand for artificial intelligence (AI) capacity is expected to continue to drive growth in data centres, power supply, and fibre.
- Acceleration of capital deployment driven by grid modernisation, energy security, and industrial onshoring.
- Urbanisation driving the need for social infrastructure investment in developed and emerging markets.
- Continued growth of private capital and the emergence of asset backed finance as a receptive market for infrastructure execution.
Observations and outlook
- 2025 proved a strong year for private infrastructure, with around $1.56 trillion in global activity, driven by sustained momentum in the power and digital sectors. Investment increased across all major sectors on a year-on-year basis.
- Global infrastructure debt volumes reached approximately $1.05 trillion in 2025, with funding shifting modestly toward capital markets to an estimated 80/20 split between bank lending and capital markets (compared with roughly 85/15 in 2024).
- Investment grade (IG) opportunities continued to see significant activity while attractive high yield (HY) opportunities continued to expand for institutional investors. Infrastructure debt maintained a strong premium to public comparables while offering spreads of +200-250 bps for IG issuances, +325-400 bps for BB issuances, and +425-650 bps in low BB and single B issuances.
- Infrastructure equity investment continued to see high volumes; approximately $510bn (33%) of total global volumes.
- Infrastructure equity deal flow was largest in core and core-plus strategies, while fundraising was most successful in opportunistic strategics - showing investor appetite for different types of risk-return profiles across the asset class.
Read full article
