AI infrastructure investment seen surging to USD 769 bn in 2026 amid growing safety concerns

The estimate is based on nearly USD 384 billion invested in the first half of 2026 and assumes the current pace continues through the year. It compares with USD 145 billion invested in the technology in 2025, making AI infrastructure and model architectures the largest-funded technology trend covered by McKinsey.

The surge comes amid a fresh wave of investment by major AI companies and their backers. OpenAI is in discussions with investors for additional funding that could value the company at around USD 1.2 trillion, while SoftBank has launched an USD 11 billion bond offering to help fund a further USD 10 billion investment in OpenAI. Anthropic, meanwhile, is in discussions with Nvidia over a potential investment of up to USD 10 billion as part of a proposed IPO that could raise as much as USD 100 billion, according to Reuters.

The investment boom, however, is unfolding alongside growing concerns within the AI industry about the pace of technological development and the ability of existing safeguards to keep up.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called for the global AI community to slow the release of new capabilities to allow more time to address safety risks. OpenAI has also called for mandatory national AI safety requirements, including independent assessments, cybersecurity measures and incident reporting for advanced AI systems.

OpenAI has separately urged the United States to lead international efforts to establish technical standards for frontier AI and systems capable of recursive self-improvement, arguing that coordinated standards and incident reporting are needed as AI capabilities advance.

Against this backdrop, McKinsey in its report said five technology trends -- agentic software development, AI infrastructure and model architectures, AI for scientific discovery and engineering, the future of space technologies and the future of robotics -- are on track to receive more than double the investment in 2026 compared with 2025. All trends except advanced connectivity are expected to see higher year-on-year funding.

The report said the investment shift reflects the growing importance of the physical infrastructure required to scale AI, including semiconductors, data centres and power systems. Energy technologies alone attracted nearly USD 200 billion in investment in 2025, while spending on AI infrastructure doubled during the year, it said.

However, McKinsey cautioned that the expansion of AI could face constraints from shortages of energy, talent and capital, as well as legacy technology systems and cybersecurity risks.

In the United States, data centres running AI workloads alone are projected to consume as much electricity by 2030 as California does today, while more than 2,500 gigawatts of energy projects globally are waiting for grid connections.

At the enterprise level, McKinsey said AI adoption is broadening, but translating that adoption into financial returns remains a challenge. The report said 89 per cent of organisations regularly use AI in at least one business function, while only 37 per cent report any positive EBIT impact from AI at the enterprise level.

The next phase of adoption will therefore require companies to move beyond experimentation and redesign workflows around humans and AI agents, the report said.

The defining question of the agentic era is not how autonomous agents can become but how much autonomy the enterprise can safely absorb, McKinsey partner Oana Cheta said, highlighting the operational and governance challenges that could shape the next phase of AI adoption.

The developments point to a widening gap between the pace of capital deployment into AI and the growing emphasis among leading AI companies on safety, oversight and governance as increasingly capable systems are developed. (ANI)