Swiss Re sees $200bn premium in data centres, renewables by 2030. Cat bonds, sidecars have a role

With the global economy having entered a capital expenditure (capex) super-cycle, there is a notable increase in investments being directed towards AI data centres. According to reinsurer Swiss Re, this could be a US$200 billion premium opportunity by 2030, within which alternative reinsurance capital, including catastrophe bonds and sidecars is expected to play a key role.

The expansion of data centres is regarded as having one of the biggest opportunities for growth within the global insurance, reinsurance, and insurance-linked securities (ILS) industries.

Given this, a new report released today at the Monte Carlo Rendez-vous by Swiss Re Institute estimates that AI data centres and renewable energy infrastructure alone could generate around $200 billion in premiums between 2026 and 2030.

The firm also underscored that the ongoing “investment boom” is creating larger and more concentrated risks, as assets cluster in the same locations and increasingly depend on shared infrastructure and networks.

“The capex super-cycle is creating increasingly large, complex and interconnected risks that challenge insurers’ ability to deploy capacity with confidence. The key constraint is not the availability of capital, but insurability. Emerging assets such as hyperscale data centres test the limits of risk quantification, diversification, maximum loss and economic viability,” the report reads.

“Yet these risks are inherently insurable in private markets. Advances in engineering expertise, underwriting, risk modelling and programme design can be used to unlock capacity. Layered placements, syndication, reinsurance, captives and alternative capital can help distribute large and complex exposures and improve accumulation management. Expanding the boundaries of insurability will be essential for converting the capex super-cycle into sustainable long-term insurance growth,” Swiss Re Institute continued.

As mentioned, Swiss Re Institute also believes that this $200bn opportunity creates a clear role for the alternative reinsurance capital market, so that deployed through insurance-linked securities (ILS).

“For AI data centres and large energy infrastructure projects, reinsurance is key for providing necessary capacity for primary insurance companies.

“We see a future role for catastrophe bonds and sidecars to provide additional capacity for upper layers of property programmes exposed to large natural catastrophe scenarios such as earthquake, windstorm or flood, where risk accumulation is hard to diversify,” the firm explained.

Adding that, “Brokers and reinsurers are in prospective stages of developing catastrophe bond or sidecar structures for data centre risks.”

Swiss Re Institute’s report also observed that global energy investment is expected to reach $3.4 trillion in 2026, with around $2.2 trillion being directed towards renewables, nuclear, grids, storage, low-emissions fuels, efficiency and electrification.

As well as this, the five largest US hyperscalers are expected to invest nearly $800 billion in AI-related capital expenditure in 2026, while estimates for global data-centre capex exceed $1 trillion.

Swiss Re said that, as insurance and reinsurance towers are constructed to support this build-out, “Reinsurance and alternative capital sit above and behind the subscription tower.”

Further into the report, Swiss Re underscored that these investments are transforming data centres from information technology assets into vital infrastructure.

The firm pointed out that their power needs are measured in gigawatts, asset values in billions of dollars, while their operations rely heavily on electricity, telecommunications, cooling systems, and cloud infrastructure.

The reinsurer outlined that this transition creates considerable insurance demand, while also introducing new concentrations of risk.

Moreover, Swiss Re’s report importantly highlighted that while public-private partnerships are necessary for systemic risks like terrorism or nuclear liability, large commercial projects, such as AI data centres, remain fundamentally insurable through private-market solutions like layered insurance, reinsurance, and alternative capital.

“Public-private partnerships are most appropriate where risks are systemic, difficult to diversify or subject to legal and public policy considerations that limit the capacity of private markets alone. Examples include pandemic risk, terrorism, cyber catastrophes and nuclear liability, where government participation or statutory backstops help address potentially extreme losses and ensure the continued availability of cover,” the firm’s report explained.

“By contrast, large commercial risks such as AI data centres and energy infrastructure remain, from the current point of view, fundamentally insurable through private-market solutions. Layered insurance programmes, syndication, reinsurance and alternative capital enable insurers to assemble capacity for more complex projects, allowing government intervention to remain focused on risks that cannot be efficiently managed by private markets alone.”

Gianfranco Lot, Swiss Re’s Chief Underwriting Officer P&C Re, commented: “We are seeing the digital economy become a real economy. AI needs data centers, power grids and increasingly complex infrastructure – and all of it needs insurance. That creates growth opportunities across multiple lines of business, but also significant risk concentrations. The deployment of capacity will depend on our ability to understand and manage those, and getting paid for the associated tail risk.”

Jérôme Haegeli, Group Chief Economist and Head of Swiss Re Institute, added: “A new investment era is taking shape, with unprecedented amounts of capital flowing into the infrastructure that will power future economic growth. This also concentrates more value and creates new dependencies across power systems, supply chains and digital networks. Insurance is essential to making these investments resilient and financeable.”

Data centre risks was a key point of discussion at our recent Artemis London 2026 conference.

During one of the panel session’s, experts outlined that as digital infrastructure capex investments fuel an unprecedented boom in data centre development, the scale of the insurable values being generated and planned is significantly stretching the capabilities of the traditional insurance market, which is leading to calls for alternative and ILS capital to actively get involved.

Read other Artemis articles about the data centre risk transfer opportunity for ILS here.