As Data Center Construction Plans Soar, U.S. Electric Utilities Race to Serve Once-in-a-Lifetime Load Growth

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Written by John Egan for IIR News Intelligence (Sugar Land, Texas)

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Summary

Plans to build data-center infrastructure in North America, mainly the United States, now exceed $5 trillion of tracked project value. Those figures measure buildings, electrical and mechanical systems, site power and project-owned on-site generation. They do not include graphics processing units (GPUs), servers or racks. Industrial Info Resources is tracking announced projects with construction kickoffs scheduled out to 2043. The U.S. states with the largest dollar value of that pipeline are Texas, Virginia, Ohio, Georgia and Utah. Electric utilities across the country are raising capital-spending plans to serve the proposed computer campuses. Industrial Info Resources does not expect every announced project to reach commercial operation on its stated schedule.

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Data Center Growth Driving Utility Capital Construction Plans

Not too long ago, data centers were a sleepy sector in the industrial market, easy-to-miss box-like structures dedicated to processing global e-commerce, running Software as a Service (SaaS) enterprise applications, streaming media services and supporting mobile applications.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has changed all that. The explosive growth of generative AI platforms from OpenAI, Anthropic PBC, Microsoft Corporation, Amazon.com, Inc., Alphabet Inc. , Meta Platforms and others has unleashed an unprecedented arms race to build new facilities housing computer servers and the associated hardware needed to run, train and deploy software and AI models.

All of that has had a spillover effect on electric utility plans to build electric infrastructure--generation, transmission, distribution and energy storage--to power those planned facilities. Until recently, electric load growth of 1% per year was considered strong; now, 5% or more annual growth is becoming the norm for data-center-heavy utility territories.

The electric utilities with the greatest expected load growth and capital spending increases include those serving the hottest data center states -- among them CenterPoint Energy, Dominion Energy, American Electric Power Company Inc. , Duke Energy, Southern Company, Florida Power & Light, Entergy, Xcel Energy and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).

"Data centers are coming," a TVA spokesperson told Industrial Info. "In only a few years, data centers have gone from 1-5% of our industrial load to about 18% today, and we expect that percentage to double by 2030." Industrial customers account for about 60% of TVA's electric load, he added.

Similarly upbeat projections abound across the electric industry. Most U.S. shareholder-owned electric utilities are unveiling significant increases in their planned capital expenditures (capex) every quarter when they announce earnings.

Foluso Nwanguma, Industrial Info Resources' vice president of research for North American Data Centers, made this observation: "Data centers constitute one of the most dynamic sectors in U.S. business history, with numerous new projects announced each day."

What are the Hottest State Markets for Data Centers?

Industrial Info Resources is tracking trillions of dollars of planned data center infrastructure construction in the United States.

The figures below are infrastructure total investment value (TIV) only. They exclude chips, servers and racks. They include announced multi-phase campuses with construction kickoffs tracked as far as 2043, not a forecast of projects that will be completed in the next few years.

The five states with the highest planned outlays for that infrastructure are:

• Texas ($1.2 trillion)
• Virginia ($470 billion)
• Ohio ($366 billion)
• Georgia ($363 billion)
• Utah ($276 billion)

This project pipeline includes several enormous multi-phase projects that drive up aggregate project activity.

The buildout is not limited to those five states: indeed, several states, including Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Arizona, Illinois and Missouri, each have data center construction plans exceeding $100 billion.

Around the world, Industrial Info Resources is tracking more than $7 trillion of active data-center infrastructure projects, which includes outlays for buildings, electrical and mechanical plant, site power, and associated on-site generation. That sum actually undercounts the data center industry's planned total outlays, which go beyond US$7 trillion to cover GPUs, servers, and rack information technology. Our $7 trillion+ in infrastructure projects also excludes planned outlays for onsite power generation that will be owned by third parties.

We do not believe that all planned projects will reach commercial operation according to their announced schedules. However, the pipeline is more than full. In our 40+ years as a business, we have never seen this type of planned growth.

In the United States, Industrial Info Resources has confirmed that construction began on 187 capital projects for new or expanded data centers valued at about $186 billion during the first half of 2026. That is an 86% increase from the year-earlier six months, when about US$102 billion of projects began turning dirt. The project count rose 35%.

First-half 2026 kickoffs were larger, more numerous, and more inland than a year earlier. Dollar growth outpaced the rise in project count, so the average campus size increased. Texas led both dollars and project count. Ohio, Mississippi Indiana, and Louisiana accounted for a large share of the incremental TIV.

By the Numbers

• $7 trillion+: worldwide tracked plans to build data-center infrastructure, with construction kickoffs out to 2043. About $5.1 trillion of that is slated for North America, mainly the United States. Neither figure includes GPUs, servers or racks.
• $1.2 trillion: tracked data-center infrastructure projects slated for Texas.
• $186 billion: U.S. data-center construction projects that began construction in January-June 2026, 86% more than in the comparable year-earlier period.

What Could Go Wrong?

The data center and electric utility industries are running hard to keep up with each other. The hockey-stick growth plans of some developers have unnerved some stakeholder groups, including customers, regulators and even elected officials.

A slowdown in planned data center construction could also reduce utility capex plans.

Industrial Info's Nwanguma noted, "We have noted a rising level of project postponements and cancellations, caused by growing popular resistance to planned data centers, and a rising level of city, county, state and federal efforts to slow down planned construction."

She said tighter project-finance conditions also could slow the planned buildout.

Some Big Tech companies that had financed a more modest level of planned construction out of cash flow have had to go to the public and private capital markets to obtain construction funds. Some of those companies reported negative free cash flow for the second quarter, as construction needs outstripped internally generated funds.

"It is clear that, for some companies, investors' patience is wearing thin with ever-increasing plans to build data centers," Nwanguma said. Sinking investor enthusiasm for some companies' data center plans may cut into the total number of projects actually constructed.

Industrial Info has widely covered the data-center construction boom in the U.S., its attendant challenges and ways that companies could gain broader public acceptance.

For more on that, see:

• September 11, 2026, article - Data Centers: Some U.S. Developers Seek to Build Bridges and Bring Down Walls
• August 28, 2026, article - Fracker Could Help U.S. Data Centers Overcome Strategic Challenges
• August 19, 2026, article - Texas Governor Pauses New Data Centers, Mirroring Growing U.S. Skepticism
• August 4, 2026, article - Data Center Capex Grows in U.S., But Some Cracks Start to Appear
• July 20, 2026, article - Data Centers Face 'Arc of Outrage,' But Consultant Has a Plan
• July 7, 2026, article - Money, Votes and Data Centers: Will Political Spending Overcome Rising Public Opposition to Data Centers?
• May 6, 2026, article - Actual, Planned Capital Investments in U.S. Data Centers Soar

Key Takeaways

• The United States is experiencing an unprecedented construction boom for data-center infrastructure. Industrial Info Resources' tracked pipeline extends to projects with construction kickoffs as far as 2043 and excludes GPU and rack investment.
• Sharp growth in planned data centers is driving up capital spending programs for electric utilities.
• Several factors could slow the data center boom, including public opposition, political and regulatory pushback and the availability and terms for the trillions of dollars of capital that companies need to build their data center infrastructure.

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About Industrial Info Resources
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, Industrial Info Resources is tracking over 250,000 current and future projects worth $30.2 trillion (USD).