For the first time in recorded history, the US is pouring more money into data centers than into airports, ports, and mass transit combined.
According to US Census Bureau data, data center construction hit a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $50.7 billion in April 2026. Transportation infrastructure spending, which covers airports, marine terminals, and mass transit (but not highways), came in at $49.3 billion.
A 344% surge since 2020
Private data center construction has increased 344% since 2020. Year-over-year growth was running at roughly 28-30% as of April 2026. Data centers now account for 2.3% of total US construction spending.
The driving forces are familiar by now: artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Hyperscale operators, the Microsofts and Amazons and Googles of the world, are in an arms race for compute capacity. Training large language models and running inference at scale requires physical infrastructure on a staggering level.
