Data centers now outspend the rest of private office
In January 2014, when the Census Bureau first broke data centers out of private office construction, America was building them at a $1.6 billion seasonally adjusted annual rate. In September 2026 the same series stood at $96.5 billion.
Every other private office building in the country, combined, was $49.2 billion.
Data centers now account for two-thirds of private office construction spending. Total U.S. construction spending in September was $2,186.1 billion, down 2.7% from a year earlier. The office line is rising because of one subcategory. September figures are preliminary.
How Census counts it
Census files data centers inside private Office. "All other private office" in the chart is private Office minus Data center. In the detailed private table, Census also publishes a "General" office line at $46.0 billion in September, down 8.2% year over year. The $49.2 billion residual includes that general office stock plus smaller office components such as financial buildings. The comparison that matters for the buildout is the same either way: the servers' buildings are now larger than the rest of the office category put together.
The crossover
We walked the monthly seasonally adjusted series back to 2014. Data-center spending first exceeded the rest of private office in November 2025 ($53.0 billion against $52.5 billion) and has stayed ahead every month since. By September 2026 the gap was almost two to one.
| Month | Data centers | All other private office | Data centers as share of private office |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 2014 | $1.6bn | $34.0bn | 5% |
| Sep 2025 | $50.7bn | $53.7bn | 49% |
| Nov 2025 | $53.0bn | $52.5bn | 50% |
| May 2026 | $65.7bn | $49.5bn | 57% |
| Sep 2026 (p) | $96.5bn | $49.2bn | 66% |
Since January 2014, the data-center annual rate is up about 59 times. The rest of private office is up about 45%. Year over year to September, data centers are up 90.3%; the rest of private office is down 8.4%. Private Office as a whole still prints a strong +39.5% year over year only because the data-center line is inside it.
What the rest of construction is doing
Private nonresidential construction rose 1.1% in September to $790.6 billion. Associated Builders and Contractors, reading the same Census release, said data centers and power accounted for virtually all of that increase; strip those two out and nonresidential spending fell on the month. Private electric power alone was $146.9 billion, up 14% from September 2025. Housing went the other way: private residential spending dropped 5.5% in September.
The office story, then, is not a broad return to towers. It is a single use case pulling a category that still carries the word "office" in the government tables.
Our take
The chart is easy to misread as a boom in places people work. It is a boom in places machines work. Private office excluding data centers has been drifting down while the data-center line has risen without a pause. Boards that still treat "office construction" as a proxy for white-collar headcount are reading the wrong series.
Two practical points follow. First, any forecast that uses total private Office without splitting out data centers will overstate conventional workplace demand by a wide margin — two-thirds of the September office dollar is not a floorplate for analysts. Second, watch power alongside the buildings: the facilities need the electricity, and private electric power spending is rising with them.
Watch the December 1 revision to the September print, whether data centers stay above the rest of private office through 2027, and whether general office finds a floor near the mid-$40 billions. Until then, the honest headline is not that America is building offices again. It is that America is building data centers, and the Census still files them under Office.
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau, Value of Construction Put in Place (C30), September 2026 release (November 2, 2026; September preliminary)
- U.S. Census Bureau, Private construction spending, seasonally adjusted (Office, Data center and General lines; monthly SAAR)
- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED), Total Private Construction Spending: Office (PROFCONS) (Sep 2026: $145,633 million)
- Construction Dive / Associated Builders and Contractors, Data centers kept nonresidential construction spending positive in September (November 3, 2026)
- Table and calculations: The Graze, from the Census C30 monthly private Office and Data center series
