Why capital is quietly rotating away from stories it must believe and toward structures it can measure — in emerging markets, in the US Southeast’s power grid, and inside private credit itself.

Confidence is a strange thing to put a number on, but every month, S&P Global does exactly that. Its Purchasing Managers’ Index, or PMI, surveys the people who actually run companies — the ones who decide whether to hire another shift, place another order, or hold off until things look clearer. A PMI reading is not a mood. It is closer to a weather report for a business’s next quarter, and in July 2026, that forecast told two very different stories depending on where you looked.

Globally, the outlook remains well below what history would call normal, even though overall confidence improved slightly in July from May. The reasons are not mysterious. The Middle East war, the Russia-Ukraine war, and US tariff policy are each, in their own way, a tax on certainty — and businesses do not expand cheerfully into uncertainty. What is more revealing is where that caution is concentrated. In the developed world, growth expectations have actually rebounded. In emerging markets, they have done the opposite: July optimism sank to one of the lowest levels these surveys have ever recorded. China, Russia and Brazil reported particularly weak confidence, and India, which had been a rare bright spot earlier in 2026, saw that improvement fade.

For a family office, that divergence matters more than the headline number. Broad “emerging markets” exposure has always been a bit of a misnomer — it bundles together economies with very little in common beyond a shared label. What July’s data confirms is that the bundle is fraying in a specific direction: capital allocators are being asked to trust growth stories in places where the people closest to the ground are, themselves, losing confidence in the near term. That is precisely the environment where narrative-driven investing gets expensive, and where the discipline of asking for proof — audited numbers, hedged currency exposure, manager-level due diligence — starts to earn its keep.

It is worth sitting with that phrase — proof over promise — because it shows up again almost immediately, just a few thousand miles away and in a completely different sector. While emerging market sentiment cools, something very concrete is being poured into the ground across the US Southeast: concrete, steel, and transmission line, in service of artificial intelligence. According to 451 Research by S&P Global, the electricity demand of US data centers is projected to climb from 64.4 gigawatts in 2025 to 183 gigawatts by 2030 — nearly a threefold increase in five years. A gigawatt is a large unit; as a rough rule of thumb utility planners use, one gigawatt can power somewhere in the neighborhood of 750,000 average American homes. Multiply that out, and the scale of what AI and cloud computing are demanding from the American power grid becomes hard to overstate.

Nowhere is that demand landing harder than the Southeast. S&P Global Energy estimates that 173 data centers are planned across the region over the next five to six years, representing roughly 9.6 additional gigawatts of electricity demand — a regional grid stress test with a firm delivery date attached. Utilities are not waiting to see if the demand materializes; they are already underwriting it. Entergy, the region’s dominant utility, plans to invest $12.9 billion in seven new natural gas power plants capable of producing 5.2 gigawatts — largely to serve a single Meta data center project in Louisiana. Do the arithmetic, and one utility, serving one hyperscale technology company, in one state, accounts for more than half of the entire Southeast’s projected new data center demand.

This is the AI story that rarely makes the highlight reel, because it is not a chip announcement or an earnings beat — it is a utility rate case, a natural gas turbine order, and a multi-decade capital expenditure plan. But it is arguably the more durable version of the AI trade for a family office, because it is anchored to a signed power purchase agreement and a physical asset that either exists or does not, rather than to a valuation multiple that can compress overnight. Whether accessed through utility equity, energy infrastructure debt, or the private credit financing that increasingly underwrites this kind of build-out, the underlying logic is the same one emerging markets are currently failing to offer: something that can be measured, inspected, and delivered on schedule.

That same logic — measurable over promised — is quietly reshaping private credit as well, even though the headlines there are less dramatic than a power plant. Private credit is, in plain terms, lending done by non-bank funds directly to companies, instead of those companies borrowing from a bank or issuing public bonds. It has become a core allocation for institutional investors worldwide, and S&P Global Market Intelligence’s latest analysis makes an important observation: the growth story of private credit is fast becoming an operational story. As deal complexity, transaction volumes and reporting requirements increase, the spreadsheets, email chains and disconnected systems that many managers built their early success on can no longer support the size and complexity of what they now manage. The next phase of growth, S&P Global argues, will be shaped as much by the operational infrastructure firms build as by the capital that flows in.

In other words, the private credit managers who scale well from here will not necessarily be the ones who raised the most capital fastest — they will be the ones who can prove, with real systems and real reporting, that they can actually run what they have raised. That is the same discipline emerging market investors are being asked to apply, and the same discipline that turns an AI power plant announcement into a bankable asset rather than a press release. Confidence built on narrative is being repriced across every one of these markets. Confidence built on verifiable infrastructure — electrical, operational, or institutional — is where new capital is choosing to go.

FREQUENTLY ASKED

Why is emerging market business confidence falling in 2026?

July’s PMI surveys show emerging market optimism at one of its lowest levels on record, with China, Russia and Brazil weakest and India’s early-2026 rebound fading. The Middle East war, the Russia-Ukraine war, and US tariff policy are the main drags, while developed-economy confidence has rebounded over the same period.

What is a PMI, and why does it matter to investors?

The Purchasing Managers’ Index is a monthly survey of the people who run companies — asking whether orders, output and hiring are expanding or contracting. It is a leading indicator, meaning it often signals where growth and earnings are headed before that shows up in official data.

How much electricity will US data centers need by 2030?

451 Research by S&P Global projects demand rising from 64.4 gigawatts in 2025 to 183 gigawatts by 2030 — nearly a threefold increase, driven by AI and cloud computing growth.

Why is Entergy building new natural gas plants in Louisiana?

Entergy is investing $12.9 billion in seven new natural gas plants (5.2 GW) largely to power Meta’s Louisiana data center — part of a broader Southeast pipeline of 173 planned data centers representing 9.6 GW of new demand.

What does it mean that private credit is becoming an “operational” story?

As deal volume and complexity rise, S&P Global Market Intelligence notes that spreadsheet- and email-based operating models can no longer support private credit’s scale. The next phase of growth depends on real operational infrastructure, not just capital raised.

How should family offices respond to fading emerging market confidence?

Favor manager- and country-level due diligence over broad index exposure, monitor whether weakness is cyclical or structural, and treat sustained PMI declines as an early signal worth watching before it appears in earnings or currency moves.

What connects AI power demand and private credit for UHNW investors?

Both reward proof over promise. AI’s power buildout offers contracted, physical infrastructure exposure; private credit’s operational maturity is becoming a real underwriting factor. In both cases, ask for verifiable data before committing capital.