How long does it take to build a data center?

How long one building takes

Construction of an individual data center building usually takes about 12 to 18 months, according to Virginia’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC), and data center representatives told JLARC that about 1,500 workers are on site at the peak[1]. Georgia’s 2022 tax incentive evaluation assumed a construction phase of two years for the hypothetical $800 million data center it modeled[2].

Those figures cover putting up a building. They do not include the time it takes to buy land, win zoning and permits, and line up enough electricity.

What happens before construction starts

The project records in the Census show the steps that can come before anything is built: a land purchase or option, a rezoning or special use permit from the county or town, often a tax incentive agreement, and an agreement with the utility for power. Each step can involve public hearings, and some are challenged in court; the hearings calendar and lawsuits tracker list the ones in the record.

Power is a process of its own. Very large loads have to be connected to the transmission system, and federal regulators have opened a proceeding on how loads above 20 megawatts connect[3]. Assuming 50% average utilization, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s reference case translates to about 148 gigawatts of interconnection capacity needed to serve data centers in 2030[4].

Some counties and towns have also paused new applications while they write rules for data centers. The moratorium tracker lists each pause, with its length and source.

Why a whole campus takes years

Large campuses are rarely built at once. Developers often open a first building or data hall and keep building the rest, so a campus can be operating and under construction at the same time. The schedule targets that tracked projects have announced, listed below, often put the first building years ahead of full build-out.

The timelines in the table below run from the first dated event in each project’s record to the start of operations. That first event differs from project to project (an announcement, a land purchase, a local approval or the start of construction), so the range says more than any single number.

From first step to first operation

These are the campuses in the Census whose records date both their first step and the start of operations. Each span starts at the earliest dated event in the project’s record; every date comes from the project’s timeline, where its source is linked.

Months are counted between the two dated timeline events; where a source gives only a month, the count uses that month. Expansions of campuses that were already operating are left out, and so is QTS’s Fayetteville campus, whose first building is Microsoft’s Fairwater Atlanta, listed above.

Announced schedule targets

51 tracked projects that are not yet operating have a published schedule target: a completion or first-operation date, a build-out period or, in a few cases, a planned construction start. Most are company or developer statements; the wording below is as each source gives it.

A target is a plan, not a record of what happened. Open a project for the source and date of each statement.

Where tracked projects stand

• Proposed: 22
• Approved: 40
• Under construction: 43
• Operating: 13

See every project and its current stage on the project list or the map.

Common questions

How long does it take to build a data center?

About 12 to 18 months for a single building, according to Virginia’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission. Whole campuses take longer: 6 campuses in the Census went from their first recorded step to the start of operations in 3 to 38 months, and many announced targets put full build-out years after the first building.

How many workers does it take to build a data center?

Data center representatives told Virginia’s JLARC that about 1,500 workers are on site at the height of construction of a data center building.

What is the fastest a data center has been built?

Among the projects in the Census, xAI’s first Colossus supercomputer in Memphis began operating 3 months after it was announced, in an existing former factory building rather than a new one.

Why do data center campuses take so long?

Beyond construction, a campus needs land, zoning and permits, tax agreements and a power supply, and large loads have to be connected to the transmission system. Campuses are then built and switched on in phases, so the last building can open years after the first.

Sources

1. Data Centers in Virginia (Report Summary)
   Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC), Virginia General Assembly · 2024-12-09
   Source excerpt

   “Construction of an individual data center building usually takes about 12 to 18 months, and data center representatives indicated that, at the height of construction, approximately 1,500 workers are on site from various construction-related industries.”

2. Tax Incentive Evaluation: High-Tech Data Center Sales Tax Exemption (Summary)
   Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts · 2022-12
   Source excerpt

   “50 HTDC employees and an additional 217 jobs would be supported by the center's existence each year. ... Approximately 4,200 construction jobs and 7,300 total jobs would be created during an approximate two-year construction phase.”

3. Interconnection of Large Loads to the Interstate Transmission System (Docket No. RM26-4-000)
   Federal Energy Regulatory Commission · 2026
   Source excerpt

   “The ANOPR seeks public input on potential reforms related to how large loads — generally defined as electricity demand greater than 20 megawatts (MW) – interconnect to the transmission system.”

4. United States Data Center Energy Usage Report: 2025 Update
   Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory · 2026-06
   Source excerpt

   “Assuming a 50% average utilization rate, the Reference Case electricity use projections translate to 148 gigawatts (GW) of interconnection capacity needed to serve data centers in 2030.”

Each source was opened and checked against the excerpt shown. Company statements are identified as such. Figures are as published; where sources differ, each is shown.