A version of this article first appeared in CNBC's Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.

As the world's rich have gotten richer, their investment firms have doubled down on private assets such as direct lending and data centers.

The number of family offices with allocations to private markets has surged by 524% since 2016, rising from 651 to 4,067, per Preqin data. This increase surpasses that of wealth management firms (410%) and endowments and foundations (81%) with allocations to private markets, according to the alternative investment data platform owned by BlackRock.

This growth has been marked in recent years, surging nearly 21% in 2023 and about 26

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