The single biggest change in North Carolina's commercial construction market this year has nothing to do with housing.
$81.5B
U.S. data center construction starts, Jan–Jun 2026 — above all of 2025's $72.5B
Top 5
NC among five states taking ~60% of trailing-12-month data center starts spending
116
U.S. data center projects broken ground in the first half of 2026
50%
Net share of NC contractors expecting higher data center project value in 2026 (AGC survey)
Why NC keeps winning these projects
Power availability, land cost outside the Virginia corridor, and a deep Triangle engineering labor pool. ConstructConnect's trailing-12-month data has Virginia, Texas, Louisiana, Illinois, and North Carolina capturing nearly 60% of all new data center starts spending.
The trades that get pulled in
- Electrical — switchgear, gen sets, medium-voltage distribution. The largest single scope on most of these jobs.
- Mechanical and controls — chilled water, CRAH, liquid cooling retrofits as rack density climbs.
- Sitework, grading, and utilities — the first scopes bought and the first ones visible in permit records.
- Fire protection, security, and low voltage — usually bought late, which means late-stage permit filings are still actionable.
Where a small sub actually fits
You're not bidding the $500M campus. You're bidding the access road, the temp power, the fence, the office fit-up, the second-tier electrical package. Those scopes are awarded by the GC on site, and the GC's name is on the grading and shell permit long before the job shows up in the news. Also watch the surrounding market — AGC's 2026 NC outlook shows contractors expecting higher project value in healthcare (net 67%), power (50%), and water/sewer (33%), all of which follow a data center into a county.