Skanska, one of the largest construction and development firms operating in the United States, has signed a $1.2 billion contract to build four data centers in the U.S. Southeast — one of the biggest single orders in the company’s rapidly expanding American data-center business and a fresh marker of the construction boom driving the artificial-intelligence buildout.
The Stockholm-based group announced the deal on Aug. 20, valuing the contract at USD 1.2 billion, or about SEK 11.2 billion. The order will be booked in Skanska’s U.S. results for the third quarter of 2026.
What Skanska is building
The four facilities will total roughly 75,000 square meters, or about 808,000 square feet. According to the release, Skanska’s scope covers “constructing the shell and interior fit-out for technical spaces, support areas, and office functions” — in other words, both the buildings themselves and the specialized interiors that house servers and cooling systems.
Construction is set to begin in the third quarter of 2026, with completion expected in the third quarter of 2028. Skanska did not disclose the location beyond the Southeast region, nor did it name the customer, describing it only as an existing client. The announcement carried no executive quotes.
The undisclosed client is notable in its own right. Data-center developers and the hyperscale technology companies that lease their capacity routinely keep contractor and site details confidential during construction, both for competitive reasons and to manage local scrutiny of projects that draw heavily on land, water and electricity.
A growing U.S. data-center book
The contract adds to a string of American data-center awards for Skanska. Earlier this month the firm signed a $238 million contract for a second data center building in Virginia, and it has booked additional facility work in Virginia and Georgia this year. Taken together, the awards underscore how the AI-driven wave of computing demand has become a central growth engine for large commercial builders.
That demand is reshaping construction markets well beyond the data halls themselves. RealtyWire has reported that data-center developers are outbidding homebuilders for land at prices residential builders say they cannot match, and that the sector’s appetite for skilled trades is pulling labor away from housing. The strain on power grids has become acute enough that some jurisdictions, including Virginia, have moved to make data centers pay for the transmission infrastructure they require.
What it means
The verified facts are straightforward: a $1.2 billion order, four buildings, roughly 808,000 square feet, a 2026–2028 timeline and an unnamed client in the Southeast.
As RealtyWire analysis, the size and structure of the deal illustrate why data centers have become the most consequential force in U.S. commercial construction. A single order of this magnitude rivals the value of a major office tower or mixed-use development, and it is recurring: contractors are stacking such awards quarter after quarter. For the Southeast — already a magnet for data-center investment thanks to available land and, historically, cheaper power — the project signals continued capital flow into a corner of the market that shows little sign of cooling.
What to watch: whether the client’s identity emerges as construction begins, how local power and water constraints in the Southeast shape the project’s siting, and whether Skanska’s third-quarter order bookings confirm data centers as its dominant U.S. growth category.
