The 200 largest public pension funds and sovereign wealth funds in the world collectively manage $34 trillion in assets—approximately $18.5 trillion belonging to public funds and $15.5 trillion owned by sovereign investors.
According to a new report from PwC, assets managed by these investors could rise to $58.7 trillion by 2030, with public pensions directing $36.3 trillion and sovereign investors directing $22.4 trillion.
PwC notes that the growth of these categories of investors will come amidst heavy global investment into artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure assets—the firm estimated $66 billion from these investors went to the AI theme in 2025 alone.
The firm notes that these institutional investors are also evolving from being passive allocators to asset managers who invest in the AI theme and becoming principal investors that originate deals and run the assets themselves.
“Sovereign wealth funds and public pension funds used to be thought of as passive allocators. But as heavy investment in AI infrastructure transforms the economy, behavior at the largest funds has shifted,” said Eric Janson, global private equity and principal investor leader at PwC US, in a statement. “These investors no longer depend solely on external managers—instead, they are originating transactions themselves and taking controlling positions with operational roles.”
According to PwC, approximately $151 trillion in investment will be needed by 2050 to modernize digital infrastructure, as well as support clean energy systems and new transportation systems.
“There’s lots of discussion around direct investments, direct lending. And given the scale of the largest systems, we would expect them to have a lot more active and direct dealmaking over the next few years,” says Anthony Randazzo, CEO of Equable Institute, a public pension research organization. “We don’t expect that to be the case for the small to medium-sized entities, simply because of the kind of expertise that that requires at a staffing level.”
The report finds that some asset owners are directly investing into the theme, taking companies private and building in house capabilities themselves, relying less on general partners to do this work.
Tags: Pensions, sovereign wealth funds