World capital spending on the construction and modernization of data centers will total $31.6 trillion by 2050 in the baseline scenario. That forecast comes from PwC’s inaugural Global Data Centre Outlook, released on September 2, 2026.
The estimate covers 2026–2050. If artificial intelligence is adopted faster than the baseline assumptions, cumulative investment could approach $50 trillion. In a more cautious scenario, the figure falls to about $22 trillion. For comparison, U.S. GDP is currently around $30 trillion.
Annual data-center capital expenditure, according to PwC, will rise from roughly $800 billion in 2026 to $1.1 trillion in 2030 and $1.8 trillion by 2050. The modeling was done by Oxford Economics across 46 countries and five regions.
Unlike railways, electrification, and the internet, investment in AI infrastructure does not taper off after the first wave of construction. Servers, GPUs, and other ICT equipment need to be refreshed every four to six years. Equipment’s share of capital spending will rise from 70% today to 93% by mid-century. Building construction will remain the smaller part of the bill.
The report’s authors put it this way: “Railways. Electrification. The internet. Each required enormous amounts of capital and defined an era. The AI infrastructure cycle underway dwarfs all three. This one reset every four to six years — and shows no signs of ending.”
The United States is projected to attract $15.1 trillion — almost half of the global total (48%). Asia-Pacific will account for $8.2 trillion, led by China and India. Europe is forecast at $5.6 trillion, the Middle East at $1.1 trillion, and Africa at $255 billion.
Power will be the decisive constraint: access to electricity will determine where capital flows. Disruptions in chip trade could cut global investment by nearly 20%. A push for “digital sovereignty” is more likely to redistribute those flows than to shrink the overall total.