THE CRUNCH
Private US data centre construction spending has hit a record annual pace of $84.95 billion, up more than 73% from $49.05 billion a year earlier, according to the Census Bureau's August construction spending tables. That is the fastest growth since April 2025's 88.2% surge, and it means data centre buildouts now make up about 63% of all private office construction, up from 47% a year earlier. The Census figures count buildings only, excluding the value of racks and servers inside them, so the true scale of data centre investment is larger than the record suggests.
The acceleration has been building for months. Tom's Hardware calculates year-over-year growth of 36.3% in May, 55.2% in June and 65.3% in July, so August's 73% marks a fourth straight month of faster growth.
The boom is reshaping the wider construction market. Data centre building has outpaced general office construction every month since September 2025, and the $39.1 billion gap between the two is the widest since the series began in January 2014. General office spending sits at $45.8 billion, down 9.7% year over year.
Data centres are also propping up the broader figures. Of the $8.0 billion monthly rise in private nonresidential spending, $5.9 billion, or 74%, went to data centres. Excluding them, private nonresidential construction was down 5.9% year over year rather than up. Power construction, up 9.7%, is the other notable gainer, and the Census counts power plants and transmission lines built for data centres in that separate category rather than with the buildings themselves.