Data center construction spending hit $13.0 billion in August 2025, a slight decrease from the prior month’s record of $14.0 billion, pushing YTD totals past all of 2024.
Average project costs surged to $499M, with per-square-foot costs up 47% year-over-year. This reflects escalating costs from rising complexity and energy infrastructure demands.
Southern states (Louisiana, Texas, Virginia) dominate near-term activity, with Illinois emerging as the Midwest leader in upcoming builds. This highlights the strong regional concentration in data center development.
Data Center Spending through August 2025
ConstructConnect reported that total data center starts spending in August of 2025 reached $13.0 billion, a slight decrease from the prior month’s record of $14.0 billion. Nineteen data centers broke ground in August, elevating the year-to-date (YTD) and trailing twelve months (TTM) counts to 149 and 210, respectively.
Most of the month’s spending is attributed to a single $11 billion Amazon data center campus in Virginia.
The August figure is notable, standing 75% and 400% above August 2024 and 2023 levels. At $40.0 billion, the current year-to-date total has already surpassed all spending recorded for 2024.
Chart of monthly average data center construction starts spending through August 2025. The line represents a 12-month moving average, in $ billion. Image and Data: ConstructConnect
Recent months of historically high expenditures have driven the average monthly spending level over the past year to a record $4.2 billion. This has also resulted in a 95% increase in starts spending based on a year-over-year percentage change in value. At the current pace, total 2025 spending is projected to exceed the upper range of our 2025 forecast.
Annual US data center spending through August 2025 by calendar year and YTD through August 2025 is shown in a chart. The August figure is notable, standing 75% and 400% above August 2024 and 2023 levels. At $40.0 billion, the current year-to-date total has already surpassed all spending recorded for 2024. Image and Data powered by ConstructConnect Project Intelligence
ConstructConnect Project Intelligence (CCPI) data indicates 22 data center projects in some stage of late-preconstruction. Among these are two marquee projects, a Meta data center in Louisiana and Compass data center development in Illinois, worth a combined estimated value of $20 billion.
Should both projects break ground, total data center starts for all of 2025 would be above $60 billion.
The average cost of a data center has increased from $426 million to $499 million over the last twelve months.
The average cost per square foot has risen more sharply, climbing from $665 to $977.
This 47% increase in cost per square foot is a testament to the fact that such facilities have become significantly more expensive to build. This explains why a greater number now carry price tags exceeding one billion dollars.
Data centers are being developed across the continental United States, partly because developers must secure locations with sufficient power for these new structures.
For the year-long period ending in August, Virginia again led as the state with the most data center construction underway, mainly due to the aforementioned $11 billion Amazon project. Louisiana is the second most active state with $10 billion in starts during this period.
Texas and Arizona follow with $5.3 billion and $2.4 billion in starts, respectively. Overall, most data center starts have been concentrated in the southern half of the U.S., with a few exceptions, such as Virginia and select states between Ohio and Missouri.
Total data center starts spending over the next six months could approach $30 billion if all 31 projects monitored by ConstructConnect push through to an on-time groundbreaking.
The South accounts for the largest share of starts in the next six months, representing 57.1% of the potential value. Construction in this region is concentrated, with Louisiana, Virginia, and Texas comprising nearly all the potential spending.
This map displays the regional distribution of total potential data center construction start values across the four US census regions and Canada over the next 6 months. Image and Data powered by ConstructConnect Project Intelligence
The Midwest region holds the second-largest market share with almost $11 billion in potential data center starts over the next six months. This is primarily driven by Illinois, the state with the highest level of potential data center starts spending in the country for the period.
The West region’s value is divided evenly between projects in Arizona and California. New York and Alberta are each slated for one data center, representing the only near-term projects in their respective regions.
This map shows US Data Center construction starts spending in $ billion for the trailing 12-month period through August 2025. Image and Data powered by ConstructConnect Project Intelligence
Investment in power infrastructure is a cornerstone of long-term data center growth, providing the capacity needed to sustain and scale with soaring demand.
From January to August 2025, Power Infrastructure construction starts totaled $10.7 billion, a 47% decrease from the same period in a record-breaking 2024, according to ConstructConnect data.
Full-year 2025 Power Infrastructure starts are forecasted to reach $23.5 billion, supported by potential megaprojects in Louisiana, North Dakota, Washington, and Kansas breaking ground later this year.
Post-2025 Power Infrastructure starts are projected to climb to over $30 billion by 2027. This growth in investment is necessary to support the unprecedented expansion of data centers and the sector’s substantial electrical demands.
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