Data Centers Catch Up With Offices in US Construction

Digital infrastructure is reshaping US construction

The US commercial construction market entered 2026 with a new center of gravity. Just a few years ago, office buildings were still the clearest symbol of business real estate. Now data centers have become the fastest-growing part of investment and construction activity. Bloomberg’s framing highlights a structural shift: spending on digital infrastructure has moved to the same scale as office construction and, by some calculations, has started to edge past it. Official US Census Bureau data confirm the broader change in direction. In December 2025, total office construction spending in the United States stood at $107.6 billion at a seasonally adjusted annual rate, while private office construction spending reached $91.2 billion. At the same time, the office market remains much weaker than it was before the pandemic, while demand for AI and cloud capacity continues to accelerate data center development.

Why data centers are moving to office scale

This shift is being driven not only by the artificial intelligence boom, but by a deeper reallocation of capital. Companies are increasingly investing in computing infrastructure rather than traditional business space. Data centers now underpin cloud platforms, enterprise AI models, storage systems and a wide range of digital services. According to Our World in Data, using US Census Bureau data, monthly spending on the physical construction of data center buildings in the United States has risen sharply in recent years. The indicator only measures work performed on-site and excludes servers, racks, land and much of the equipment inside the building. That means even the visible construction surge captures only a portion of the broader digital investment wave.

The US office market is losing its role as the main construction engine

Official statistics show that office construction no longer looks like the unquestioned leader of the commercial market. In December 2025, private office construction was only slightly above November levels and stood at $91.249 billion at a seasonally adjusted annual rate, versus $88.339 billion a year earlier. That points to modest nominal growth, not a return of offices as the primary expression of investor optimism. For developers and capital markets, the more important point is that offices now look like a mature and slower-moving segment, while data centers are capturing the newest demand, the newest funding and the most aggressive expansion plans.

AI and cloud demand are accelerating data center construction

The momentum in data centers is being reinforced by the spending plans of the largest technology companies. Bloomberg reported earlier that Microsoft and Meta each added close to $50 billion in additional data center lease commitments, helping push total future lease commitments among the biggest cloud companies above $700 billion. Separately, Bloomberg cited Moody’s as saying data-center-related investments could attract about $3 trillion over the next five years. Those figures help explain why digital infrastructure construction is moving from a niche activity to a central driver of the US building cycle.

But data centers are now facing new growth constraints

The irony is that explosive demand has also made the sector more exposed to physical bottlenecks. Bloomberg reported in late February that new US data center construction fell in 2025 for the first time since 2020, with capacity under construction dropping to 5.99 gigawatts from 6.35 gigawatts a year earlier because of delays in permitting, zoning and power procurement. CBRE and JLL have both emphasized that the market’s main constraint is no longer capital or land, but access to power and predictable delivery timelines. JLL expects global data center capacity to nearly double by 2030, from 103 gigawatts to 200 gigawatts, but that growth will depend on solving grid and infrastructure constraints.

What the shift means for the US construction market

For the US construction industry, this represents a much deeper transformation than the rise of a single niche. Data centers are changing labor allocation, supply chains, material demand and even competition among states. KPMG noted that at the start of 2026, outside data centers and a few public segments, momentum in construction remained limited. In other words, digital infrastructure is increasingly becoming the category that supports commercial construction while offices, housing and parts of traditional real estate remain under pressure.

Investors are making a clearer bet on digital infrastructure

The market is no longer treating data centers as a secondary asset. They are increasingly viewed as a distinct infrastructure real estate class. CBRE says demand is rising in 2026 as AI and cloud usage expands, while JLL describes the current period as an infrastructure supercycle. That does not mean office construction disappears. It means capital priorities have shifted toward assets with stronger scarcity, more durable demand and a clearer long-term technology rationale. In that structure, offices become a more conservative asset, while data centers increasingly define the next US construction cycle.

As International Investment experts report, the convergence and, by some calculations, overtaking of office construction by data centers is more than a temporary AI craze. It is a sign of a deeper reordering of the American economy. The US is investing less in square footage for workers and more in physical infrastructure for computing, storage and digital services. For investors, that points to growing interest in locations with reliable access to power, land and network connectivity, while the traditional office segment will depend increasingly on asset quality, location strength and the ability to adapt to a very different demand environment.