Deloitte Access Economics Investment Monitor

6 November 2025: Releasing the latest edition of the quarterly  Investment Monitor report, Deloitte Access Economics Partner and lead author, Stephen Smith, said: “The value of projects in the Investment Monitor database is just under $1.2 trillion in September, which is 7% higher than a year ago.

“As global uncertainty continues to weigh on business investment, the project pipeline is being supported by structural growth opportunities – including the net-zero transition and the global AI race.

“While the public sector has been the main driver of project investment in recent years, the private sector accounted for more than 80% of new projects added to the database in the September quarter.”

The September edition of Investment Monitor provides insight into how the net-zero transition is changing Australia’s investment landscape.

“The net-zero transition has made the utilities industry the main driver of Australia’s investment pipeline”, Smith said. “The value of planned utilities projects in the database increased by $155 billion in the two years to September. Stripping out utilities projects, the value of all other planned projects fell by $11 billion.”

The decline in the value of planned projects, excluding the utilities industry, partly reflects the other side of the global energy transition.

“The value of planned projects in the coal industry has been revised down by $19 billion over the past two years. Major projects have been refused environmental approvals while the global economic environment is weighing on the outlook for coal.”

Overall, business investment is expected to remain modest through the end of the year before recovering in 2026.

“Business investment is likely to remain a weak spot in the Australian economy in coming quarters,” Smith said. “Business confidence is creeping higher, but many firms remain more focused on managing costs than on expanding capacity. With persistent uncertainty in the global economy, and some bumps in the outlook for inflation and interest rates, the pace of business investment is expected to remain modest over the year ahead.”

This September edition of Investment Monitor highlights the structural growth opportunities that are bolstering the investment pipeline.

“As businesses and governments around the world race to take advantage of the transformational potential of AI, the next physical infrastructure boom has been set in motion,” said Smith.

“The first wave of the AI infrastructure boom is data centres, which now represent a total of $37 billion in the Investment Monitor database. The pipeline is likely to expand further as Australia’s abundant renewable energy, vast spaces and fast-growing data centre demand draw the attention of global players. The second wave of AI-driven investment will be energy. Rapid growth in data processing activity will increase the load on the national electricity grid, and the size of Australia’s renewable energy investment will grow larger still.”

The report highlights the following trends:

• Definite investment (projects under construction or committed) grew by $38 billion in the year to September to reach $542 billion, led by continued work in the utilities and transport industries.
• Planned investment (projects under consideration or possible) grew by $37 billion to $654 billion, with the renewable energy pipeline driving nearly all of the growth.

Chart 1: The value of definite investment by industry

Chart 2: The value of planned investment by industry

Deloitte Access Economics’ Investment Monitor is primarily a source of information for businesses and others about major engineering and commercial construction projects and their promoters. It is also a barometer of structural change in the Australian economy, and of the investment climate – now and in the future.