US data center construction spending surges 46% year-over-year to $68B as AI and crypto miners reshape infrastructure

Data center construction spending has hit an annualized rate exceeding $68 billion, a 46% jump from the prior year, according to US Census Bureau figures. The catalyst is exactly what you’d expect: an insatiable appetite for AI compute that has turned empty plots of land into the most valuable real estate in tech. The growth trajectory has been sustained since early 2024, accelerating through 2025 with annual spending rates reaching $45 billion to $50 billion or more in various months this year. The great pivot: from Bitcoin blocks to AI racks Companies like IREN, Cipher Mining, CleanSpark, Hut 8, and Core Scientific are executing one of the most dramatic strategic pivots in recent memory. These firms, which built their businesses around securing cheap power and running ASICs around the clock, have realized they’re sitting on something far more valuable than mining capacity: power infrastructure that AI companies desperately need. The result has been a wave of multi-billion-dollar lease agreements as these miners repurpose their facilities for high-performance computing and AI workloads. They’re essentially converting mining sites into AI data centers, swapping SHA-256 hashes for t...