As this chart shows, between 2018 and 2022, spending on building data centers in the US hovered between $500 million and $1 billion per month (when adjusted for inflation).

But since late 2022, large investments in AI have led to a rapid growth in data center construction — both by expanding existing facilities and building new, larger ones.

The latest figures released by the US Census Bureau estimate that $4.4 billion was spent in June 2026 alone — a 5-fold increase compared to November 2022, when ChatGPT was released by OpenAI.

These figures cover privately-funded construction and represent only the money spent on building the actual facilities, including materials and construction labor. They don’t include the cost of IT hardware like servers and storage, which can represent a very large share of total investment.

Source: Our World in Data.