Hyperscale capacity hype – Defining the ILS role in data centre risk: Artemis London 2026 video

This video from our Artemis London 2026 catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities conference in September sees a panel of experts discussing the topic of the day: where capital market investors can realistically participate in data centre risk through ILS structures.

This fourth panel session of the day was titled “Hyperscale capacity hype: Defining the ILS role in data centre risk.”

The panel was moderated by Andy Palmer, Head ILS Structuring EMEA & APAC, Swiss Re Capital Markets.

He was joined by: Niklaus Hilti, Chief Investment Officer, Euler ILS Partners; Mick Moloney, Partner, Global Head of Insurance, Asset Management and Actuarial, Oliver Wyman; Michael Knecht, Managing Director Investment, Cambridge Associates; and Abderrahim Elamrani, Head of Reinsurance, Descartes Underwriting.

As digital infrastructure capex investments fuel an unprecedented boom in data centre development, the scale of the insurable values being developed and planned are stretching the capacity of the traditional marketplace, leading to calls for alternative and ILS capital to get involved.

Our speakers in this session highlighted this capacity gap caused by unprecedented investment scale, extreme capital concentrations, and complex risks like power supply reliability and chip value depreciation.

While traditional insurers struggle with these large limits, ILS can provide essential peak risk capacity, the speakers said, although exact structures and mechanisms for slicing up the risks embedded in these large and valuable campuses remains a topic the industry needs to further develop.

Challenges remain regarding risk transparency, correlation with existing investor portfolios, and the need for standardised structures.

Ultimately, our experts suggested that although investors must navigate uncertainty, the sheer magnitude of the sector makes it an inevitable target for specialised catastrophe risk transfer and parametric solutions, perhaps starting at the reinsurance and retrocession end of the market chain.

Watch the full video from our Artemis London 2026 conference to learn more about the catastrophe bond and ILS markets role in providing risk transfer capital to support the hyperscaler and artificial intelligence (AI) data centre build-out and how this can be achieved.

Thank you again to everyone who attended Artemis London 2026, to our expert speakers and our supportive sponsors.

Our Artemis ILS NYC 2027 conference will be held on February 5th next year. Tickets are now available.

We will return to London next year and look forward to seeing many of you at our Artemis London 2027 conference.

Watch videos from our previous Artemis conferences.

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Our Artemis London 2026 conference sponsors can be seen below, we thank them all for their valued support:

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