In August we wrote that Texas had paused new data center grid interconnections, and we told contractors to treat an announced data center as a lead rather than a booked job. That was the right call at the time. Six weeks later there is a number that answers the obvious follow-up question. Texas is on track to pass Virginia as the world’s largest data center market, and of the more than 250 projects in the state, roughly 140 are already in active construction. Here is what that cohort means for sitework demand and how to tell the two groups apart.
The question we left open in August was simple: how many of these are real.
Texas is on track to become the world’s largest data center market this year, passing Virginia, with direct construction spending up about 63 percent to roughly $26 billion (Source: Associated Builders and Contractors of Ohio Valley data, reported in Texas Contractor, August 2026). The state has more than 250 technology infrastructure and data center projects, and roughly 6.5 gigawatts of power capacity under construction, the highest in North America.
Of those 250-plus projects, about 140 are in active construction.
Texas has more than 250 data center and technology infrastructure projects, with about 140 already in active construction and roughly 6.5 gigawatts of power capacity being built.
Source: ABC Ohio Valley data, reported in Texas Contractor, August 2026
Why that number matters
When we covered the interconnection pause, the concern was that most tracked Texas projects were early stage, meaning the pad had not been built and the earthwork had not started. Early stage is exactly where select fill, structural fill, base and haul demand begins, so a pause on interconnection was a pause on the thing that unlocks the dirt work.
A 140-project active cohort changes the shape of that. It does not invalidate the caution, it bounds it. There is a real, funded, powered group of projects moving dirt right now, and a separate group still waiting in a queue.
What a data center campus consumes
A data center campus is a very large graded pad, and the earthwork is front-loaded. Select fill and structural fill to build and balance the pad, base under the building slabs and under an unusually large amount of paving, and access roads heavy enough to carry equipment deliveries that are far heavier than a typical commercial job.
Then there is the electrical side, and 6.5 gigawatts of capacity under construction is its own material story. Substations need pads and crushed surfacing. The lines feeding them need access roads and tower or pole foundations across open ground.
What to do
Keep the August discipline and add one question to it. When a data center opportunity reaches you, ask whether it is in the active group or the queue group. Projects with power secured and earthwork under way are worth holding capacity for. Projects still waiting on interconnection are worth tracking, not staging trucks for.
Honest caveats
Two. The $26 billion figure is a full-year projection from an industry association reported in August, not a current monthly measurement, so use it for scale rather than as a bid input. And project counts in this sector move quickly in both directions.
The forward read
Data center work is now large enough in Texas that it is a structural part of the sitework market rather than a novelty. The contractors who do well in it will be the ones who can tell a funded pad from a press release, which is the same skill that mattered in August. When you find one that is real, get a delivered number on the fill.
A press release still does not move dirt. But 140 of these are moving it.
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