The clearest recent U.S. milestone is a statistical one: the Bureau of Economic Analysis said its 2025 annual update would add data on business investment in data centers. Separate measures show how quickly the sector is expanding—but they track different things. Federal Reserve researchers counted more than $900 billion in announced project plans through September 2025, most not yet under construction, while the White House reported that data-center structures investment grew 20.1% in 2025. Neither figure means the U.S. spent $900 billion building data centers that year.
What is the new U.S. data-center investment milestone?
On September 15, 2025, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) announced that its annual update would introduce data on business investment in data centers. The agency cited a sharp rise in construction of facilities supporting cloud computing, artificial intelligence, networking, and data storage. This is a milestone in how national economic statistics track the sector—not a single new dollar total for all U.S. data-center spending.
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The distinction matters because “investment” can refer to proposed projects, completed building work, equipment purchases, or a category’s contribution to GDP. Each answers a different question.
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BEA’s 2025 annual-update announcement
How much is the U.S. investing in data centers?
There is no single figure in these sources that captures all data-center-related spending. The Federal Reserve’s project-level research gives a measure of plans, while the White House reports on the narrower category of structures investment. These figures should not be added together or treated as interchangeable.
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| Measure | Figure and period | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| New project plans | Almost $300 billion in 2024; more than $900 billion through September 2025 | Project-level plans compiled by Federal Reserve researchers; most had not broken ground. |
| Structures investment growth | 20.1% in 2025 | White House-reported growth in data-center structures investment, not all equipment or software. |
| Structures’ GDP share | 0.13% of GDP in 2025 | White House-reported share for data-center construction structures, excluding installed computer equipment. |
| Contribution to real GDP growth | About 0.03 percentage point in 2025 | White House-reported contribution from data-center construction, not the entire economic footprint of AI infrastructure. |
| Forecast investment | $370 billion annualized by 2026 Q2 | Federal Reserve researchers’ mean model forecast, conditional on future project plans—not a confirmed spending total. |
The project-plan totals come from the Federal Reserve’s 2025 working paper, “Estimating Aggregate Data Center Investment with Project-level Data.” The annualized forecast is reported on the Federal Reserve’s 2026 research page.
How much of the planned investment has actually been spent?
The more than $900 billion figure is not an estimate of completed construction or money already spent. Federal Reserve researchers compiled project-level plans and explicitly noted that most plans through September 2025 had not broken ground. Projects may be delayed, revised, canceled, or remain unbuilt, so a plan total describes a pipeline of intended activity rather than realized investment.
The Fed’s $370 billion annualized figure for 2026 Q2 is also not an observed spending total. It is a mean forecast based on a model and assumptions about the future flow of project plans. The researchers’ 2027 scenarios vary widely when those future plans change, underscoring that the forecast is uncertain.
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What counts as data-center construction spending?
Construction spending covers the buildings and structures that house data-center operations. It does not, by itself, capture the servers, racks, networking hardware, software, or other equipment installed inside those buildings. A server rack cabinet is part of the physical infrastructure within a facility, but it is not the building structure measured by a construction-spending statistic.
The White House’s 2026 Economic Report makes this boundary clear: its 2025 figures concern data-center structures, and the reported GDP share excludes installed computer equipment. The figures therefore show strong growth in a defined building category, not the total cost of developing and operating AI or cloud infrastructure.
White House, 2026 Economic Report of the President
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What do the figures say about data centers and the economy?
A 20.1% increase in structures investment signals rapid expansion in data-center building activity. But the White House put that construction at 0.13% of GDP in 2025 and its contribution to real GDP growth at about 0.03 percentage point. Those measures help put the growth rate in context: rapid growth in a specific investment category does not necessarily make it a large share of the whole economy.
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The GDP figures also do not measure every economic effect tied to data centers. They exclude installed computer equipment and should not be described as the full contribution of AI, cloud computing, or data-center-related business investment.
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The Federal Reserve’s July 2026 Monetary Policy Report separately links business investment to AI infrastructure, but that broader macroeconomic context is not a substitute for a data-center-only spending total. Federal Reserve, July 2026 Monetary Policy Report.
How to read newer construction-spending headlines
Tom’s Hardware reported on October 6, 2026, that private data-center building construction spending had reached an $84.95 billion annualized pace in August 2026, compared with $49.05 billion a year earlier, citing Census construction tables. The reported pace is an annualized rate for building construction—not cumulative spending and not a total for servers, racks, or all data-center investment. Because the precise figures come here through secondary reporting, they should be treated as that report’s account of the Census tables, not as a verified all-in investment measure.
Tom’s Hardware report on August 2026 construction spending
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