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U.S. Construction Spending: Data Centers vs. General Offices
Value of private construction put in place, seasonally adjusted annual rate, monthly, $ billions
Plays the chart through its history. Pauses are where the data set a record or moved most.
U.S. Census Bureau, Construction Spending (C30). Census has reported data centers separately within office construction since January 2014. Buildings and built-in equipment, not the servers inside. The newest month is preliminary.
Both lines come from the same Census category, private office construction. Spending on data centers has grown many times over since 2014 while general office building fell back from its peak, and data centers have outspent offices since late 2025.
What this chart reads
- U.S. Data Center Construction Spending (Census, SAAR)as “Data centers”latest 2026-08-01
- U.S. General Office Construction Spending (Census, SAAR)as “General offices”latest 2026-08-01
Sources
U.S. Data Center Construction Spending (Census, SAAR). Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Construction Spending (C30), value of private construction put in place, seasonally adjusted annual rate. Public domain.
U.S. General Office Construction Spending (Census, SAAR). Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Construction Spending (C30), value of private construction put in place, seasonally adjusted annual rate. Public domain.
Charts are drawn from Palanor's signal library and recomputed from source data on every view. Transformations (changes, indexing, year-on-year rates) are Palanor's.