AI data centers can't build themselves | August 29, 2025 AI Infrastructure Insights
Navigating a skilled labor crunch
Data centers might house AI, but humans still build them and operate them. With billions flowing into new data center builds, money isn't often the limit on a data center project — it's more likely to be power, equipment or skilled trade workers. Today we take a closer look at the last one. Electricians, HVAC techs, riggers, and construction crews are in short supply, and demand is skyrocketing as projects spread across the U.S. To keep up, companies are teaming earlier, communicating constantly, and taking unprecedented steps to prevent burnout — because algorithms can't pour concrete, or wire a server room. AI may power the future, but tradespeople are building it. 🏗️
AI Infrastructure Top 3
Skilled labor shortage: With billions being poured into getting concrete poured and data centers up and running, the availability of trade workers in construction, HVAC, electrical and more is a crucial component of success.
China seeks chip self-reliance: China plans to triple AI chip output, launch new fabs for Huawei, adopt DeepSeek’s FP8 standards, and push HBM3 memory—all as U.S. export bans on Nvidia accelerate the tech rivalry.
AIDCs surge: The AI data center market will surge from $14.25B in 2024 to $984B by 2032, fueled by hardware demand, hyperscale growth, cloud adoption, and large-scale AI model training.
AI Today: What You Need to Know
Nuclear boost: Fermi America has partnered with South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility to develop nuclear power at its 11GW HyperGrid campus in Texas, expanding ties with global suppliers as the project advances toward construction.
Yo quiero AI (or not): Taco Bell tried an AI order system at more than 500 locations. Humans messed with the AI, and it also produced glitches of its own, like telling customers that a store was out of everything but drinks and sauce packets.
Malaysia's AI bank: Ryt Bank, Malaysia’s first AI-powered bank, uses a local AI assistant, Ryt AI, to offer multilingual, secure, and personalized banking — integrating saving, spending, borrowing, and payments in one app.
Unclear AI ROI for banks: Nearly 70% of Gen AI banking use cases lack reported results due to difficulty isolating impacts, measuring cost benefits, and translating efficiency gains into clear ROI or societal value.
Green for green: The Asian Development Bank issued its first regional data center loan, of about $26.8m to Thai data center operator GSA, for a 25.6 MW facility with an emphasis on renewable energy and green infrastructure.
AI gets a PAC: Meta is launching a California-focused PAC to back bipartisan state candidates supporting AI innovation and lighter regulation, amid debates over the state's regulatory approach.
OpenAI IPO delayed?: OpenAI’s IPO plans reportedly face delays until at least 2026 amid contract renegotiations with Microsoft over IP access, AGI clauses, and cloud exclusivity, plus Microsoft's stake.
AIDC economics: Praetorian Capital CIO Harris Kupperman believes AI data centers face unsustainable economics, like depreciation that will outstrip revenues, requiring tenfold revenue growth—or billions of customers—to provide ROI.
Advancing AI biomedicine: Singapore’s Nanyang Biologics launched an AI-driven drug discovery program called Vecura, with Equinix and HPE. Nanyang wants to build the world’s largest natural drug compound library.
Know your liquid cooling: TAI data centers are adopting liquid cooling methods to efficiently manage heat from power-hungry GPUs and TPUs, boost performance, and reduce energy use.
Upcoming Events
AI Infrastructure Forum 2025: This one-day virtual event will discuss the critical issues and challenges impacting the AI infrastructure ecosystem, examining the growth and evolution of the AI ecosystem as it scales and the need for flexible, sustainable solutions.
Industry Resources
Report: AI infrastructure will power the next economic revolution
Report: How to test and assure telco AI infrastructure
On-demand webinar: How to test and assure telco AI infrastructure
Was this newsletter shared with you? Sign up to receive it here
Mechanical Engineer P.E. ; Vehicle Dynamics; interested in Sport&Muscle Cars , Cars Racing and Aerospace&Defense.
2dnews on AI Data Centers: Data centers might house AI, but humans still build them and operate them. With billions flowing into new data center builds, money isn't often the limit on a data center project — it's more likely to be power, equipment or skilled trade workers. Today we take a closer look at the last one. Follow other... AI Infrastructure Top 3. AI Today: What You Need to Know. Thank you for sharing.