By Jack Sheppard, PR & Marketing Senior Associate
There is plenty for infrastructure investors to be optimistic about. Demand for reliable energy, digital connectivity and transport continues to grow, while Preqin forecasts that infrastructure assets under management (AUM) will reach around $3 trillion by 2030. However, as discussions at SuperReturn Global Infrastructure 2026 made clear, a growing market brings its own challenges. Infrastructure fundraising is becoming more concentrated among larger managers, and investor appetite remains selective. For infrastructure fund managers seeking capital, there is still considerable work to do in explaining where the opportunities lie and how they intend to deliver returns.
UK infrastructure investment: planning and policy
In the UK-focused sessions at SuperReturn Infrastructure, much of the discussion centred on what happens once that capital is available. Planning delays, grid connections and uncertainty over policy can all make it difficult to establish when a project will progress and on what terms. Gareth Davies MP highlighted the importance of institutions providing continuity beyond electoral cycles, reflecting the longer investment horizons infrastructure requires. Discussions about public-private partnerships and the renewal of social infrastructure highlighted the need for a clearer pipeline of projects, with responsibilities and risks properly understood by both sides. Long-term investment becomes easier to justify when investors can see a credible route from an initial commitment to a completed project providing a valuable service.
Data centres, grid capacity and energy demand
The relationship between digital infrastructure and energy illustrates this particularly well. An attractive data centre site still needs a reliable power supply and a realistic timetable for securing it. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has highlighted the pressure that concentrations of data centres can place on local electricity grids, making access to power an increasingly important consideration in assessing development opportunities. At the conference, discussions about artificial intelligence (AI) and digital growth therefore overlapped with questions about grid capacity, energy security and affordability. This also creates opportunities for investors in the generation, storage and energy-efficiency infrastructure needed to support that growth.
Mid-market infrastructure: creating operational value
Alongside these large investment themes, SuperReturn Infrastructure’s mid-market panels offered a useful reminder of the work involved in growing individual businesses. Ancala’s Karen Dolenec highlighted the opportunities in under-optimised businesses where a manager becomes the first institutional investor, bringing scope to improve operations and expand capacity. In a separate discussion, Laura Coquis of A.P. Møller Capital explored the importance of operational agility and the connections between terminals, warehouses, trucks and cargo flows. Together, these contributions illustrate how value creation depends on understanding how a business operates and where additional investment will make a commercial difference.
