October 2026 Data Center Report: Spending Reaches $98.5B, Costs Rise
Date Posted: October 6, 2026
Posted In: Discussion,
From ConstructConnect: August 2026 Data Center spending totaled $14.4 billion across 17 projects, lifting the year-to-date (YTD) project count to 153 and the total spent on Data Centers to $98.5 billion.
- The largest project to break ground for the month was the nearly 300-acre AVAIO Digital Data Center Campus project in Little Rock, Arkansas at $6 billion.
- Through August 2026, Data Centers accounted for 24% of all Nonresidential Building starts.
August 2026 Data Center spending totaled $14.4 billion across 17 projects, lifting the year-to-date (YTD) project count to 153 and the total spent on Data Centers to $98.5 billion.
Data Center Construction Costs Rising Faster Than Size
Data Centers are rising in costs faster than size, pushing cost per square foot prices steeply higher.
- YTD, among Data Centers with known price and square footage, the average Data Center cost is $1.18 billion and covers 707,000 square feet. The comparable figures for 2025 were $507.4 million and 493,000 square feet.
- On a per-project basis the Data Center construction cost, per square foot, can range dramatically from less than $300 to more than $2,200 per square foot, depending on the project specifics.
- After removing the bottom and top 10% of projects by their cost per square foot, the median and average Data Center price, per square foot in the YTD period, is $541 and $867, respectively.