Global M&A on track for $4 trillion in 2026, PwC says

PwC's mid-year outlook says global M&A deal value is on pace to hit $4 trillion in 2026, up roughly 13% from last year.pwc
Deals over $5 billion now account for 48% of total value, up from 26% in 2024, as AI infrastructure spending reshapes capital flows.pwc+1
U.S. deal value nearly doubled to $1.2 trillion in the first five months of 2026, though overall deal volume is falling 13%.pwc+1

Global mergers and acquisitions activity is on pace to reach $4 trillion in 2026, marking the strongest year since the pandemic-era boom of 2021, according to PwC's mid-year outlook released on Tuesday. The surge is being driven almost entirely by a handful of megadeals tied to artificial intelligence infrastructure, even as the broader dealmaking market contracts.

A K-Shaped Market

The report describes an intensifying "K-shaped" M&A environment: deal values are climbing while volumes are falling. PwC projects roughly 42,000 deals for the full year, a 13% decline from 2025, yet total value is up approximately 13% year-on-year. Transactions exceeding $5 billion now account for 48% of global deal value, up from 39% in 2025 and 26% in 2024. Strip out those megadeals, and deal value is actually down 4%.cnbc+1

"2026 is the year M&A supersized," said Brian Levy, PwC's global deals industries leader. "AI is intensifying the K-shape by driving megadeals, redirecting capital, and changing sector winners and losers."pwc

The Americas accounted for 61% of global deal value in early 2026, despite representing only 28% of deal volume. In the United States alone, M&A deal value reached $1.2 trillion in the first five months of the year, nearly double the $603 billion recorded in the same period in 2025.pwc+1

AI Reshaping Capital Flows

AI-related investment is reshaping where capital goes — and how. PwC notes that Alphabet , Amazon Amazon.com, Inc. , Meta , and Microsoft are collectively expected to spend more than $700 billion in 2026 on AI infrastructure. Capital is increasingly flowing through minority investments, joint ventures, and partnerships rather than traditional control-based acquisitions.pwc

Among the largest deals cited in the report is NextEra Energy's proposed $67 billion combination with Dominion Energy , designed to create the world's largest regulated utility business and a platform for rising AI-driven power demand. Other megadeals span consumer markets, industrials, and pharmaceuticals, including McCormick's proposed combination with Unilever's food business and KONE's combination with TK Elevator.pwc

Risks Ahead

PwC cautioned that the outlook is not without hazard. Higher-for-longer interest rates, slowing global growth, sticky inflation, and geopolitical volatility could all make the next phase of dealmaking more difficult. The private equity exit backlog remains stubbornly high, with 34% of portfolio companies now held for more than five years, up from 25% in 2025.pwc

"In a supersized market, discipline matters more than ever," the report concluded.pwc

Sources (15)