The global boom in the construction of data centers – driven by the growth of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning – is creating organic growth opportunities for major brokers such as Aon and Marsh.
“Over the next five years, it’s estimated that between 2,000 to 3,000 data centers will be constructed worldwide, and we’re already well on the way to establishing our pre-eminence in this ecosystem as a trusted partner,” said Martin South, president and chief executive officer of Marsh Risk, during an analysts’ call to discuss Marsh’s fourth quarter and full-year results.
In 2025 alone, South added, Marsh US had the leading market share of the $205 billion in data center construction values, while the company is “the clear leader” in Asia, serving six of the largest foundry businesses, the four largest memory integrated device manufacturers, and the largest semiconductor tool manufacturer.
Read more: The $3 Trillion AI Data Center Build-Out Becomes All-Consuming For Debt Markets
“The data center opportunity, it is unique; it has never been seen before; it is monumental. It also requires a level of response and complexity that’s beyond what the traditional industry has ever accomplished – just be clear about that,” said Aon Chief Executive Officer Greg Case during last week’s analysts’ call to discuss the broker’s Q4/FY2025 results.
“This requires real, net new innovation around alternative forms of capital, how we think about risk, how we pool risk, all those pieces,” he said, adding that data center opportunities will reinforce mid-single-digit or greater organic revenue growth.
John Doyle, president and CEO of Marsh, said investment in the digital infrastructure world is expected to hit roughly $3 trillion over the next five years.
A recent report published by Allianz Commercial quotes statistics from Morgan Stanley that data center investments will hit $3 trillion by 2029, while McKinsey estimates capital outlays of close to $7 trillion by 2030.
“It’s been an area of focus for us for some time,” Doyle said, noting that Marsh has launched a Digital Infrastructure Practice in response to growing demand. (The practice is led by Mike Mathews, global digital infrastructure leader, who was appointed in December.)
The investment in digital infrastructure “comes from lots of different parts of the economy, not just hyperscalers, of course. And so we’ve been focused on it, and we’re quite excited about the investment there,” Doyle added.
Allianz defines “hyperscalers” as the major technology companies, which are spearheading this expansion. “In 2024, hyperscalers globally spent around $210 billion on data center capital expenditures related to AI deployments,” Allianz said.
Dean Klisura, president of Guy Carpenter, Marsh’s reinsurance business, described the digital infrastructure space as providing the single biggest new business opportunity in 2026 for both cedents and reinsurers.
There have been “estimates of up to $10 billion of new premium entering the market in 2026 because of these opportunities,” he said, emphasizing that the market needs more capacity.
“No cedent is going to put up billions of dollars of capacity for a single location risk. So that’s a real issue. All of our clients want to write data centers across 10-plus products globally, but they require additional reinsurance protections,” Klisura continued.
“Everybody is concerned with accumulations in portfolios, and we’re solving that right now for our clients,” Klisura said.
As a result, he said, new capital – not just traditional reinsurance capital – needs to enter the market. “The introduction of third-party capital and securitizing some of these risks via sidecars and other vehicles is going to be critical,” he said, explaining that such third party capital will have to be sourced from “deep-pocketed investors given the size of these risks.”
Nick Studer, president and CEO Marsh Management Consulting, explained that the data center opportunities go beyond the construction of new facilities and includes 90% of existing data centers that need to become AI-enabled.
“So we’re working with colleagues across our businesses to help manage that transformation, integrating strategy, risk and execution planning,” Studer said. “And we’re also seeing strong demand in our energy practice around power, around grid strategy, around supply chain resilience, around the navigation of regulation.”
Marsh Risk’s South said the company recognizes that insurance capacity is a critical factor in supporting data center growth, which is why Marsh’s large-scale data center construction insurance facility, “Nimbus,” in January doubled its capacity to US$2.7 billion for major data center construction projects in the UK, US, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.
Insurance broker Aon also detailed some of the opportunities it is seeing from the data center construction boom.
Aon’s CEO Case said that the broker currently handles one-third, or even more, of the data centers out there now, so it is “incredibly well-positioned.” The AI/data center race is just beginning, he affirmed.
KBW equities analyst Meyer Shields, summed up Aon’s comments about data center opportunities “as a once-in-a-generation global build cycle requiring new risk structures, alternative capital, and analytics….”
“[T]here are only a handful of global brokers (obviously including Aon) that can credibly address data center insurance needs, and we expect that, combined with increasing recent hire productivity, to sustain above-average organic revenue growth in 2026 and beyond,” according to Shields’ “Flash Note,” covering Aon’s conference call takeaways, which was published on Friday, January 30.
In July 2025, Aon launched its Data Center Lifecycle Insurance Protection Program (DCLP), which provides coverage for data centers from construction through operational readiness under a single integrated facility. Capacity was expanded last month to $2.5 billion from $1.5 billion.
Case went on to cite several data center success stories to demonstrate how Aon is driving results and fueling momentum in 2026.
When a large international construction client needed a dedicated broker to support the full life cycle of a new data center project, Case said, Aon combined its “role as a trusted adviser with a united global team, bringing together account leadership with construction, data center, energy and cyber specialists to deliver an integrated proposal.”
In addition to DCLP coverage, Aon provided advanced climate analytics and proprietary risk analyzers, all aligned to the client’s long-term growth strategy, Case said.
“The client credited our team’s expertise and our global connectivity and capabilities as central to the win, reinforcing our strength in leveraging trusted relationships and leading analytics to create high-quality growth opportunities,” he continued.
Case then detailed another client win from Aon’s reinsurance team, which “recently designed and placed the first-ever data-center-specific treaty,” delivering a solution that provides up to $5 billion of capital through the insurance value chain behind a single leading insurer.
“Our advisory capabilities around site selection, design and engineering as well as tremendous data and advanced analytics are critical to informing effective capital protection decisions in the face of extreme weather, supply chain and cyber risk,” Case said, emphasizing that Aon’s “leadership in this space is another factor that supports sustainable organic revenue growth.”
Photograph: An Amazon Web Services AI data center is pictured in New Carlisle, Indiana, on Friday, Oct. 3, 2025. (Noah Berger/Amazon Web Services via AP Images)
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