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Swiss Re says data centre risk transfer needs new capital economics
Swiss Re Institute estimates the data centre and related renewable energy build-out could drive up to $200 billion of cumulative premiums by 2030, with AI data centre capex reaching as much as $1.6 trillion a year by 2031.
Swiss Re executives told attendees at the 2026 Rendez-vous meeting in Monte Carlo that insuring and reinsuring the data centre build-out will require alternative reinsurance capital to be effective in economic terms. At a briefing focused on Swiss Re Institute research into the data centre risk transfer opportunity, the company said investors in insurance-linked securities and other capital sources are likely to play a key role in meeting the scale of capacity needs.
Swiss Re pegged a potential premium opportunity at up to $200 billion by 2030 from data centres and related renewable energy infrastructure. The firm also warned that the exposures from these projects are different from past dealings, with risk accumulation needing to be reworked into a new risk architecture.
Jérôme Haegeli, Swiss Re's Group Chief Economist and head of Swiss Re Institute, said the build-out is set to create larger, higher-value assets, and that digital infrastructure requires a new mindset to address insurability. He added that insurers could quickly hit risk limits, implying much of the risk will need to be reinsured.
Swiss Re estimates capex for artificial intelligence data centres could reach as much as $1.6 trillion a year by 2031, or about $7.6 trillion cumulatively between 2026 and 2031. The company said that level of spending on concentrated, high-value, and operationally complex campuses will likely require more risk to be transferred, alongside thoughtful ways to match capital sources with the exposure profile.