Announced FDI projects signal further changes in the geometry of global trade and the future map of international business.
Foreign direct investment has transformed industries from oil to electronics. Providing initial funding is just the start; cross-border deals that take root also transfer knowledge and spur ongoing domestic investment. Today's patterns of greenfield FDI announcements signal a new shake-up.
FDI promises to shape advanced manufacturing, AI infrastructure, and the resources that power them. Since 2022, three-quarters of cross-border announcements have gone to these types of future-shaping industries as well as energy and mining projects—up from about half pre-2020. While not all announcements proceed, historically 60 to 80 percent have.
Pledged investment has increasingly followed geopolitical lines. Advanced economies increased investment into each other (especially the US), while flows to China decreased by nearly 70 percent. China shifted from a net investee to a prominent investor in future-shaping industries, boosting announcements to Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa by over two-thirds. Emerging economies attracted investment pledges from across the geopolitical spectrum.
To win globally, multinationals are placing bigger bets. Megadeals over $1 billion, though only 1 percent of cross-border deals, now account for half the total value, a jump from one-third five years ago. New data centers, semiconductor fabs, and battery factories are cited as expensive examples.
Stakes are high and change is afoot. Successful FDI projects announced since 2022 could significantly increase battery manufacturing capacity outside China (quadruple), global data center capacity for AI (nearly double), and position the United States among top semiconductor-producing nations. These patterns help decision-makers anticipate shifts in global trade and international business.
Announced FDI flows increasingly target industries that will shape the global economy and the resources that power them. Future-shaping industries include data centers powering artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductor fabrication facilities (fabs), electric vehicle (EV) and battery manufacturing facilities, and a range of other advanced manufacturing from pharmaceuticals to aerospace.
Together, future-shaping industries and resources accounted for three-quarters of greenfield FDI announcements from 2022 through May 2025. In inflation-adjusted, 2024-dollar terms, this was up from around 55 percent during the 2015 to 2019 period—the pre-COVID-19 period we use as a baseline for comparison. Such investments could substantially expand the capacity of these industries and shift their global footprint into new locations.
Greenfield FDI announcements by industry, annual average 2015–19 and 2022–May 2025, % of total
¹Includes business services, construction and real estate, financial services, healthcare, hotels and tourism, leisure and entertainment, and transportation and warehousing.
²Includes building materials, chemicals, consumer products, food and beverage, glass, paper, plastics, rubber, textiles, and wood.
³Includes broadcasting, cloud infrastructure, computer programming services, data centers, telecommunications, and video games.
⁴Includes aerospace and defense, automotive and batteries, electronics, industrial machinery, medical devices, other transport equipment, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors.
⁵Includes the extraction and processing of minerals, as well as the production of metal products, such as steelmaking.
⁶Includes coal, oil, and gas extraction, transport and processing, renewable energy generation, and production of low-emission fuels such as hydrogen and its derivatives. Does not include solar panel and other equipment manufacturing, which are included in advanced manufacturing.
Source: Using data provided by fDi Markets; BSi Global Institute analysis
BSi & Company
This shift reflects the structure of these sectors: They are winner-takes-most, technologically advanced, and capital intensive, so only a handful of global firms have the capabilities to compete. At the same time, governments, eager to host them and reduce reliance on geopolitically distant partners, are deploying powerful carrots and sticks. The result is a surge of announced megadeals (exceeding $1 billion) that drive most FDI growth and shape the global economy.
In contrast, annual announced investments in conventional industries have dropped by more than 30 percent. This category includes a wide range of basic manufacturing sectors—including consumer products, food and beverages, and textiles—as well as operational and professional services, a broad category that spans construction, real estate, logistics, and financial services.
Multinational corporations are making bigger bets on future-shaping industries, driven by competitive urgency and a need to establish themselves as global players in key sectors. These bets are reshuffling geopolitical ties, with multinationals—especially from advanced economies—bringing investment closer to home.
Video: The Future of FDI
Greenfield FDI announcements and goods trade indicators. 2005-May 2025.
¹Distance measures the value-weighted average distance. Geopolitical distance measures the value-weighted average partner similarity based on analysis of UN General Assembly voting patterns between 2005 and 2022. Economies without UN representation are excluded.
²3-year rolling average.
³For goods trade, this figure represents the change between 2017 and 2024.
Source: Using data provided by fDi Markets; UN Comtrade; UN Digital Library; Voeten (2017); World Bank; BSi Global Institute analysis
Megadeals, which are greenfield FDI projects valued at over $1 billion in inflation-adjusted terms, are growing in importance as firms race to compete globally in future-shaping industries.
About 200 megadeals annually—representing 1 percent of all deal announcements—now account for approximately half of announced greenfield FDI, a significant increase relative to the previous period, when they accounted for under one-third. In fact, this category of big deals drove almost all of the growth in announced FDI in future-shaping industries, as well as about 75 percent of the growth in resources.
Announcements suggest that greenfield FDI is emerging as an engine for future-shaping industries. These announcements have grown much faster than total capital investment, creating the potential to boost global capacity and to expand the worldwide footprint of these industries.
In the case of data centers and EV batteries, announced FDI projects could add roughly as much capacity as existed in 2022. For leading-edge semiconductors, FDI projects could add about 60 percent to 2022 global capacity.
Value of greenfield FDI announcements, 2015-19 and 2022-May 2025, $ billion
¹Greenfield FDI projects valued at over $1 billion in inflation-adjusted terms.
Source: Using data provided by fDi Markets; BSi Global Institute analysis
Communications and software: Top 25 corridors by announced greenfield FDI, $ billion.
Europe: Europe remained a major destination, absorbing about 40% of announced investments.
France: France received the most announced investment of any economy, including gigawatt-scale data centers announced from the UAE.
FDI's potential near-term impact on resources industries is limited to specific segments. Greenfield FDI announcements in resources are small compared with total current production capacity, contributing at most an incremental increase of less than 10 percent over 2022 levels. After all, energy and mining are massive, well-established industries. Within specific segments, however, the FDI pipeline could still play a meaningful role.
In the case of fossil fuels, approximately 80 percent of conventional energy projects are already under construction or operational. Oil and gas firms have over a century of experience in announcing and developing cross-border energy projects, so it is perhaps not surprising that such a substantial percentage are already underway.