Data Centers, Airports and Hospitals Lead Major Project Activity Now in the Pipeline

Data center projects are growing at an unprecedented rate, and they are getting bigger all of the time. Electrical Marketing’s editors found online posts on 14 new projects entering  the pipeline from Nov. 2024 through early March 2025, and nine of them were valued at $1 billion or more in total construction value (see table below). And because many developers don’t announce the construction value of their projects, there could easily be double that billion-dollar value mark.

The biggest data center project in the news recently is Meta’s $10-billion data center campus in Richland Parish, LA, notable not only for the 2 gigawatts it’s expected to consume when all built out but also because Meta committed to adding 1,500MW of new renewable energy through Entergy’s Geaux Zero initiative. A report at www.datacenterfrontier.com said this renewable power would include several gigawatts of new nuclear generation capacity by the early 2030s.

Many of the data centers in the table are operated by Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and other tech firms, and according a recent Wall Street Journal article citing Synergy Research Group, these companies now operate 445 data centers in the United States and have 249 in the pipeline.

Other large data center projects include Newmark’s $2.3-billion data center in Abilene, TX, and the Stargate plan announced in the White House two months ago by OpenAI, Softbank and Oracle to build $500 billion dollars worth of data centers over the next few years. Some of these projects are already underway.

It all means more business potential for electrical manufacturers, distributors, contractors, design engineers and other electrical professionals involved with data center construction. While electrical products typically account for 10% or so of the total cost of a construction project, they can apparently account for more than twice that percentage in a data center. Along with the cost of service equipment, cable tray or conduit, fiber-optic/data and power cabling, connectors electrical cabinets and other basic electrical system materials, these facilities require sophisticated cooling, standby generators/power backup and security or signaling systems as well.

The U.S. Chamber Technology Engagement Center (C-TEC) said in a post that the American Society of Professional Estimators found that electrical equipment costs are approximately 25% of a data center project. Data centers will continue to get larger in the next few years, and the equipment within them will get more sophisticated.
According to CBRE real estate research, “The rise of AI and machine learning is driving significant changes in data centers, including increased use of graphics processing units (GPUs) and liquid cooling to reduce the heat from these more power-intensive applications.”

Airports

It seems like almost every airport you travel through these days is under construction, and there are a whole lot of new projects planned and underway. Electrical Marketing’s editors found 15 new airport projects now in the pipeline with at least $300 million in contract value.

Seven airport projects were valued at $1 billion or more: Dallas-Fort Worth terminal ($1.6 billion); Tampa International Airport new terminal ($1.5 billion); Nashville International Airport New Horizons expansion project ($1.5 billion); Sacramento International Airport improvement program ($1.3 billion); Denver International Airport’s Great Hall project ($1.3 billion); San Antonio Airport terminal ($1.28 billion); and Norfolk International Airport’s Transform ORF Project ($1 billion).

Hospitals

While private hospital spending in the U.S. Census Dept. data was only up +4.8% through 2024, there has still been an impressive amount of planning and construction activity in recent months. Electrical Marketing found 15 projects with at least $200 million on contract value and two new projects valued at more than $1 billion: the Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital Replacement in Houston, TX, and the Intermountain Health St. Vincent Regional Hospital in Billings, MT.

Click on the link below to download Electrical Marketing's database of construction project new to the pipeline valued at $100 million or more.