S8E3: Karl Kuchel on the Infrastructure Supercycle

On this episode of the Going Long Podcast, Sarah Williamson speaks with Karl Kuchel, Chief Executive Officer of Macquarie Infrastructure Partners and Head of Infrastructure Americas at Macquarie Asset Management. Kuchel explains why infrastructure is in a sustained “supercycle,” driven by energy transition, digitalization, and shifting supply chains, and how AI and data center growth are colliding with power constraints. He also unpacks why infrastructure is fundamentally a stakeholder business, how Macquarie creates value by scaling platforms rather than simply owning mature assets, and what different types of investors should consider as they build and refine their infrastructure allocations for the next decade.

Topics Include:

• [00:01:20] The Infrastructure Supercycle and Its Drivers: How structural themes like decarbonization and digitalization, combined with underinvestment and cyclical shifts such as deglobalization and reshoring, are creating broad, sustained demand for infrastructure capital across sectors.

• [00:05:20] Global Scale, Local Stakeholders: Why similar digital and energy trends are unfolding across the US, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, and how successful investing depends on pairing a global view with a deep local understanding of regulators, communities, employees, and other stakeholders.

• [00:11:45] AI, Data Centers, and Power as the New Constraint: How accelerating AI and data usage are driving unprecedented demand for data centers, why grid constraints and power availability now determine where capacity is built, and why rising costs have not dimmed investor appetite.

• [00:18:50] Creating Value Through Growth Platforms: What Macquarie’s Aligned Data Centers journey illustrates about entering thematics early, scaling from a handful of sites to a national platform, exiting to crystallize returns, and focusing on businesses where growth and building are more accretive than simply buying at mature multiples.

• [00:25:55] Matching Infrastructure to Investor Objectives: How “infrastructure” spans a spectrum from stable, income-oriented assets to growth- and development-heavy strategies, and why more mature allocators now think in terms of how each exposure complements their existing infrastructure portfolio.

• [00:31:37] The Next Decade: Thematics Endure, Discipline Differentiates: Why Kuchel expects today’s big themes – digital, data, power, and deglobalization – to remain in place over the next decade, and how the real test will be which investors paid sensible prices and executed well versus those who overpaid for strong stories.