Infrastructure Summit | Wired and Charged: ABL's Expanding Role in the Infrastructure and Energy Transition
Sep 9, 2026 — 02:00 pm - 2:40 PMSummit Room 2
The capital requirements of energy transition and the digital economy are generating a new frontier for asset-backed lending — one where hard asset collateral intersects with some of the most structurally urgent investment themes of the decade. Renewables, data centres, and sustainable infrastructure share a common characteristic that makes them natural candidates for ABL structures: they generate predictable, contracted cash flows backed by tangible assets, offering institutional investors a path to uncorrelated returns without sacrificing downside protection. This panel examines how ABL is being deployed across these themes in practice: from the rapid emergence of data centre ABS as a financing tool for AI-driven infrastructure buildout, to the integration of sustainability-linked structures within ABL facilities and the credibility challenges that come with them. With its emphasis on asset quality and cash flow discipline, is ABL uniquely placed to become the default financing architecture for sustainable infrastructure? And if so, what do allocators need to get right to capture this frontier opportunity?