Visual Capitalist January 22, 2026
Data centers have quietly become some of the most important infrastructure in the U.S. economy. As artificial intelligence (AI) workloads explode and cloud services proliferate, builders are racing to add capacity at record speed.
This graphic, in partnership with BHP, shows U.S. data center construction spending from 2014 to 2025 using data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
AI-Era Data Center Construction Boom
Here is a table showing monthly U.S. data center construction since 2014, seasonally adjusted at an annual rate.
In early 2014, U.S. data center construction ran at an annualized rate of roughly $1.6 billion. By July 2025, that number reached about $41.0 billion, more than 25 times the 2014 level.
Consequently, data centers now compete directly with offices,...
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