In Part Two of our discussion on advanced technology construction, we turn our focus to the infrastructure powering the digital economy, including data centers and semiconductor facilities. Jessica Busch is joined by Tom Vanelli and Jeff Leeper to explore how speed to market, site selection, power availability, and global supply chain considerations are reshaping how these highly complex projects are delivered. The conversation examines regional and global cost differences, offsite manufacturing and integrator models, evolving cooling and power requirements driven by AI workloads, and the growing role of automation and robotics. This episode offers owners and project leaders a practical look at how collaboration, early decision‑making, and workforce development are becoming critical to delivering these projects safely, efficiently, and at scale.

Podcast Transcript

[00:00:00] Jessica Busch: This is the Construction Insiders podcast. I’m Jessica Busch bringing you the newest trends in strategies and construction essential to anyone in the industry.

[00:00:14] Welcome back to the Construction Insiders Podcast. This is part two of our focus discussion on advanced technologies. In part one, we discussed, these aren’t just your typical buildings.

[00:00:24] When we’re talking about construction, they are the literal backbone of our digital economy.

[00:00:30] Tom Vanelli: You look at the data center capacity out there there’s roughly globally 50 gigawatts of capacity. That’s in operation. There’s another 15 gigawatts that’s currently in construction,

[00:00:40] Jeff Leeper: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,000 people that are coming in to build these factories and build these data centers.

[00:00:47] Tom Vanelli: We’re seeing some of the hyperscalers are engaging to restart nuclear power plants that have been shut down.

[00:00:54] Jessica Busch: Okay. So to jump right back in here where we left off, we talked about third party developers getting in the space and that control for land power and permits. Tom, I’m gonna start with you on this.

[00:01:07] How is this shift in the landscape? How is it impacting things and why are we seeing a surge with these third parties coming in?

[00:01:16] Tom Vanelli: It’s a great question. We’ve said it a few times, it’s speed to market. Speed to market right now is driving the industry. And when you need capacity and you can go to a developer and they already have, as we talked about earlier I’ll say there’s no shortcut.

[00:01:32] They will shortcut the process for you because they already have that land. They already have that power. They already have the entitlements, the permit. They’re somewhat ready to go and you can partner with them if, say you’re a hyperscaler and within a significantly shorter time period, have your capacity delivered that, that’s a win.

[00:01:51] Obviously there’s a bit of a premium to that, right?

[00:01:54] Jessica Busch: There always is.

[00:01:55] Tom Vanelli: And and you have to deliver. Of course. If you’re a, if you’re a developer, an operator in that space you’ve got to, if you sign up a tenant such as a hyperscaler and you’ve made a commitment to ’em, you absolutely have to deliver.

[00:02:06] And I think that’s it’s where we come into play, to be perfectly honest with you. And that’s where we can help provide some additional construction management, project management cost scheduling services that can really support that environment to ensure that delivery is on time and that commitment is met, and that’s very important to us.

[00:02:24] Jessica Busch: What about when we’re talking location, region, country, I’m assuming, this is my naive assumption that the differences can be quite dramatic. We’re talking about the actual location in the country, the region throughout the us. Can you walk us through the different costs globally? What we’re seeing our new markets opening up, how does that look right now?

[00:02:49] I’m assuming it’s always changing, but in the moment, how are we looking?

[00:02:52] Jeff Leeper: Yeah, I think what we’re seeing is the availability of the land in different locations through the US. If you were to go to say Atlanta, you may have a tighter. Market around for space rather than going to Des Moines, Iowa, Cheyenne, Wyoming the West Texas region.

[00:03:10] Jessica Busch: I was just in Louisiana and lot of land out there.

[00:03:13] Jeff Leeper: Lot of land.

[00:03:14] Jessica Busch: It’s a hot topic for this type of build

[00:03:15] Jeff Leeper: For certain, but it’s everyone’s trying to position and look at where they want to build or can build. And again, it’s back to speed. Can they secure the power contracts?

[00:03:25] Is the local jurisdiction, the county, whoever’s governing the code. To go build a facility, oftentimes these jurisdictions have never seen a data center. They don’t know what does it require, what are the code requirements and expectations, electrical code or a fire code in a semiconductor facility.

[00:03:45] So all of these things matter in terms of educating a jurisdiction, educating the local community and coming into those spaces. But. What you can find for call it lower cost parcels of land acres and acres of land. But then it requires considerable amount of work to go bring that space, that, that ground up to a point at which the facility can be built.

[00:04:09] Semiconductor, huge facilities vertically very tall carry a lot of weight, and so the ground compactions, so the ground conditions have to be assessed via geotech and things of that nature to ensure that building there makes sense, both from a physical attributes of the soil and the surrounding community but also from, again, the other aspects of power and and people to be able to get there to build it.

[00:04:34] Tom Vanelli: You you made some really good points about the domestic market and when we look overseas I think we’re starting to see more and more and there, there has been, and I think there will continue to be more and more data centers. And semiconductor fabs as well built overseas. India is a very hot market right now for that.

[00:04:50] For example we’re also seeing more, even just in Canada, just north of here South America as well. The Asia Pacific region is certainly a hot region and, in fact, my first my very first data center that I was ever on was in Taiwan. And you know it, and there’s lots of things that have to be considered when you’re working in an overseas market.

[00:05:11] It may be the labor productivity, it may be the cost of that labor. It could be just simply some of the design, right? Taiwan is a seismic earthquake zone. And the steel columns that were used on that data center were impressive, to say the least. Because you’ve gotta be able to absorb any kind of potential earthquake that comes about.

[00:05:29] And I’ll tell you that even just doing some of the scheduling and the assessments that we were doing on that project was. I don’t wanna say it was complicated, but we had to, we had a lot of historical data from the US in terms of how electrical commodities were being installed, and a lot of that had to be thrown out the window because the labor force in that country was frankly able to do it at just different rates and honestly better rates.

[00:05:54] And there’s a lot of reasons for that. But so there are things that you have to, you, you can’t necessarily take something and. It’s not cookie cutter. You can’t just copy it from here to there. You have to understand the market you’re dealing with. And it could be, like I said, labor rates, labor productivity governmental issues that you may or may not have to deal with.

[00:06:12] And that obviously is something that is unique across the globe and across the US as well.

[00:06:17] Jessica Busch: Jeff, the integrator model we hear about when we’re talking about this space what does that look like with the offsite manufacturing? In terms of accelerating timelines, because when I talk to you guys, all I hear is speed to market.

[00:06:32] Speed to market. So what does this all really mean in context of what this specific space?

[00:06:37] Jeff Leeper: Yeah, that’s a critical topic. The integrator model really looks at when an owner or the contractors are buying equipment or materials. The integrator is a concept where that material arrives at an another person’s facility, a company who takes that equipment and materials and integrates it into modules, skids of pumps and other equipment that are critical, whether it be in semiconductor or data center.

[00:07:04] So the off offsite manufacturing, there’s different terms that are used for that, but the opportunity to move the assembly offsite into another facility, it may be. 200 miles away from where we’re building a data center, but that market in terms of labor available to go build on the site, train trained electricians, pipefitters, sheet metal and so forth.

[00:07:28] Moving that labor to an offsite facility to take that equipment materials, integrated it into a package and replicate it multiple times, and then ship that completed unit to the site. It not only moves labor offsite. So for example, if we’re in West Texas where the labor availability may be very low, we can move that assembly offsite to Louisiana or wherever and package that up and have the labor available to do that at a efficient rate speed.

[00:08:00] But most importantly it’s safety and quality because you’re in a more controlled environment. You’re not on a facility with people working around you, underneath you over you adds a lot of complexities, but the safety component of that is critical. We get a quality product that then is checked, verified that it’s ready to ship, then it goes to the job site, and it’s a very repeatable model.

[00:08:21] Jessica Busch: Interesting. I never thought about it from that perspective. Yeah,

[00:08:24] Tom Vanelli: It’s also, and it’s a huge, everything he said was spot on. And it’s such a huge time saver. And that, again, that’s the whole thing here, right? Schedule is so important on these jobs. And you gotta get things done on time, gotta hit the deadlines or beat the deadlines that are committed to and that’s just a, it’s a current strategy for doing that and having a lot of success.

[00:08:46] And I would say that all that being said. You do have to be very mindful about that because if you’re not coordinating that work offsite with when that work needs to be done onsite, all of those benefits can disappear from a schedule space. And that’s again, not to plug us too much, but

[00:09:04] Jessica Busch: do it Tom,

[00:09:05] Tom Vanelli: That’s where we come in is facilitating on behalf of an owner taking that schedule or taking those delivery commitments and dates that are needed for when that equipment or when that module must arrive on site.

[00:09:16] Making sure that’s actually happening, such that we’re not, Hey this E room fab is now not gonna be here and we’ve got this space for it and that’s gonna delay commissioning by three months, or whatever the case may be. Just putting an example out there.

[00:09:31] Jessica Busch: Yeah.

[00:09:31] Tom Vanelli: And so being on top of that, managing the schedule, managing the delivery of that, making sure it doesn’t show up too early, making sure it doesn’t show up too late, super, super critical to ensure the continuity of the project.

[00:09:43] Jessica Busch: Let’s talk about design and constructions construction design and construction approaches in this space. Because I’m jumping ahead of myself here, but when I’m thinking about AI workloads versus your traditional commercial cloud application, different needs, different requirements, I’m assuming.

[00:10:07] Particularly around cooling. How is that working? What are we looking at for that? How is that evolving currently in this space?

[00:10:17] Jeff Leeper: With not only the AI and the AI training models that the hyperscalers are pushy right now, but also in the commercial cloud, we’re seeing we’ll call densification of the compute power in a data center.

[00:10:29] The number of servers and racks within a body of a data center, no matter what its utilization is for again, AI training or otherwise that’s driving higher heat loads within the facility. With that, then the more historical traditional means by which air cooling could be utilized still cooled via chillers into an air handler pushing the air over.

[00:10:49] ’cause in the end. Many of these servers are set up with air over the chip but the cooling solutions are moving more to a liquid cooling. And there’s lots of papers and studies that are out there about how to do that. But bringing cooling water into a server rack and more directly providing cool cooling water into the rack itself to provide cooling is becoming more more of the the mainstay, if you will, relative to the cooling technology and methodology.

[00:11:17] Jessica Busch: Let’s talk about that cooling technology and the technology transfer again, to bring it to off camera, to bring people, folks up to speed here. Some previous conversations we’ve had, we’ve talked about something that we talk about in our meetings at work here, this concept of this semiconductor facilities.

[00:11:37] Data centers using those concepts. What is that looking and what is that process, requirements, all of that, how is that being handled right now?

[00:11:44] Jeff Leeper: Yeah, I think from a semiconductor for decades, the semiconductor industry has been using cooling water process, cooling water if you will, that is very clean filtered and utilized within the body of the manufacturing tools, whether it be in microprocessor, what we call logic technology.

[00:12:02] Also into memory. So the cooling waters are provided through a a system within the factory that is also tied then into more of what we call a central plant chill water system. That is the more of the heat rejection side within these facilities, both data center and semiconductor. But these cooling water loops are being utilized in now data centers in higher volume.

[00:12:22] So the pipe and the chiller sizes within data center are growing significantly back to the amount of. Compute power per, if you will, square foot in a data center. So with that densification, the cooling water requirements are going up and with that chiller capacities, the types of chillers you use, the size of the pipe, the miles of pipe that have to be put in.

[00:12:45] And it’s just, it’s really becoming very similar to the semiconductor. So think about a manufacturing tool requiring cooling via water. And then the server rack is analogous, if you will, to a manufacturing tool because again, it’s producing revenue, if you will, but just through a different means.

[00:13:05] Jessica Busch: Okay. So when it comes to moving faster speed to market what are the key items that people need to really prioritize early in this type of a build. We have talked and seen in the news about the CDU delivery, the fiber optics being a major player in that kind of speed to market. Can you break down how people are moving faster, what they should prioritize?

[00:13:31] Tom Vanelli: I’ll put a couple things out there and again we’ve spoken a lot about land site selection, power entitlement, zoning, so leave that aside for a minute. Honestly, it’s, and I think the supply chain is a lot more stable than it was, let’s say, I think everyone got a real education or reeducation as it may be, about how the supply chain can disrupt things.

[00:13:52] During the COVID-19 pandemic several years ago I think that’s largely stabilized. But now with such a significant backlog of projects being contemplated right now, I think you’ve gotta be heavily focused on a, what you’re designing. B, what you need from an equipment standpoint outta that design and making sure you’re in the queue to get that equipment delivered when you need it.

[00:14:14] I think that’s one. And I think secondly whatever that may be, that may be CDUs, that may be electrical switch gear the list goes on and on. I think the other piece though, that we’re seeing more and more now because of the AI data center and how it’s designed and what has to happen is the fiber, the connectivity piece.

[00:14:31] I think three weeks ago, I saw in the news late January meta had actually, I think they’ve got now a $6 billion partnership with Corning that they’ve invested in to ensure ramp up into production of fiber optics that the latest technology, the training, the workforce, everything that goes with that.

[00:14:51] And so I think you’re seeing not just, Hey, I need to go buy this off the shelf, but you’re seeing the major players in the market are now. They’re understanding they’ve got to invest in this, they’ve gotta partner with the companies that are providing this. It really is, it’s gotta be a collaborative environment, right?

[00:15:08] There’s just such a demand out there that I, I think that has to be the path forward.

[00:15:12] Jessica Busch: So on that note, Jeff, fiber optics. Now, is this going to be a trade that is boosted because of this demand from this space? That sounds like something that we’re also gonna need.

[00:15:25] Jeff Leeper: Yeah, no, actually this is a great topic.

[00:15:26] We’ve talked with several owners and in my past life on the owner side it is a huge space fiber splicers. And if you’ve ever had an opportunity to watch some of splice glass fiber it is meticulous at best. It is amazing to watch. I couldn’t do it but that market is booming.

[00:15:45] And for those that are looking to get in and have the patience to, to sit there and bring individual strands of glass fiber together and basically fuse it more power to you. ’cause I, like I said, I couldn’t do it, but it is huge. And the amount of fiber to Tom’s point that’s being put out in the ground and through vaults and so forth the more traditional lanes where the dark fiber may have been laid within the us now we’re into regions where there is no fiber, there’s no nothing.

[00:16:13] It’s literally dirt. And so the new fiber that has to be put in to connect those new facilities into the web of the internet and the connections throughout the US and then abroad across the sea and inner sea cables, it’s is amazing. If you’re looking for a trade to get into that might want be one to explore, but bring your patients.

[00:16:34] Jessica Busch: So on that, let’s just keep moving towards the future. How are robotics automation, how is all of that being integrated, dumped into kind of our construction environment now? Especially when we talked about workers worker safety, quality of life and at the end of the day, project outcomes. How are you seeing all that play out?

[00:16:52] Jeff Leeper: Yeah, that’s a great question. What we’re seeing is a lot of the. Traditional, very meticulous and repetitive tasks are being replaced by a robotic means, if you will. For example, drilling holes in semiconductor, years ago in building a fab from my previous employer drilling screws into a roof.

[00:17:10] To hold down a temporary roof and it’s thousands upon thousands of screws to hold the roof down. And at the time we came up with a means by running multiple drills with a little press type. Now you can replace that today with robotics and a robot that goes around and will mark where the holes need to be.

[00:17:26] Then also then go drill the holes. And it’s accelerating really at a pace that’s, frankly it’s amazing. It’s great to see. So we’ve gone from models where you can go out with a set of goggles and view what’s being put in place in the field. How does that match to the design to now o other evolutions of that to.

[00:17:46] What looks like a little dog walk, walking around through the facility and it’s mapping what was done in today’s work to what’s in the model and flagging things that were put in wrong or they’re off by a half of half an inch. In many cases, a half an inch does matter. It’s how do we use the technology going forward?

[00:18:02] There’s so many different companies that are in the space right now. It’s pretty exciting to see and where it’ll go.

[00:18:08] Jessica Busch: Final question before I let you two go. What should owners and contractors and any professional in this industry be doing today to stay ahead of the curve and what does that advice look like as we move forward?

[00:18:23] Tom?

[00:18:23] Tom Vanelli: I, I’ll bring it back to a couple things we’ve said and just put a different spin on ’em. But talent, none of this happens without good people that are willing to learn work hard. Apply the skills that they have. Maybe they already have experience in this industry, and that’s great. They can teach, mentor, educate, and lead.

[00:18:44] Maybe they don’t and they can bring others along. Because there’s, again, there’s a tremendous demand. There’s not enough people, in my opinion right now, at least that’s what I’m seeing in my space that are positioned to drive this forward. So I think one is the talent pipeline. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re an owner, whether you’re providing services like we are.

[00:19:04] In a professional capacity or your, we talked about fiber optic trade tradesmen or tradeswomen as it may be. And it’s that’s a huge piece of it. I think also, and we’ve talked about the integrator and the integrated delivery model earlier and how that’s changing construction and I, maybe I shouldn’t say changing construction, but it’s it’s changing the speed at which these projects are being built.

[00:19:28] I think that type of mentality with, how do we get faster? How do we get better? How do we deliver these things safer? All of that has to be looked at. And I think any strategy that’s out there to accomplish that will be welcomed with open ears. And maybe the last thing I’ll say before I hand it off to Jeff is simply collaboration.

[00:19:48] The more I have never. When I started in construction, it was close to 20 years ago. I remember being in situations that were not very collaborative. Probably had to dodge a few chairs in meetings. It’s not like that now. At least not in the space that I work in the data center space.

[00:20:03] I think everyone is recognizing that yes, there is a contract and you have to be held accountable and, but at the end of the day, there’s a common goal and we succeed or we fail together. And whether you’re on the owner side. You’re consulting like we are, you’re on the contractor side you’re a vendor delivering equipment.

[00:20:21] It doesn’t really matter. Everyone has a shared goal and they have to have a shared goal. Otherwise these projects will not succeed. And that, that’s detrimental to everybody.

[00:20:31] Jeff Leeper: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s good. I think I would add one more, and that is recognized from an owner, developer, doesn’t matter.

[00:20:37] You’re building a facility in literally someone’s backyard. The sensitivity. The community engagement, the public affairs, in some cases, neighbor number one may be happy that owner is there bringing jobs and many other aspects to the community. Person number two may not have the same sentiment.

[00:20:58] They may be against that. So recognizing that that community engagement. And what we’re bringing to the community in terms of jobs revenue, tax, revenue things like that. But being a good partner, do we need to build? Does the owner need to build parks what is needed in the community and be that strong partner?

[00:21:19] Not just someone who’s gonna come in and take over the community. I think that’s really critical and that’s part of that probably part of that softer side of that. And I know a lot of companies do a lot of that community engagement, do a really good job but it doesn’t end at the end of the job into the project.

[00:21:33] It continues on for the life of the facilities are being built for 20, 30 year life. And so that, that engagement is so critical. And then back to the labor a little bit. I’d say the professional services. Both from an owner, developer or what we provide in that more of the owner’s rep space is important, but also the trade labor.

[00:21:51] So we spoke about fiber splicers. Orbital welders are critical trade within the semiconductor. And making sure that we have, programs in place with the unions or non-union affiliates that are really focused on training, again, next generation of electricians, of carpenters, clean room, carpenters, and the like.

[00:22:11] That will be critical for the foreseeable in terms of how to, how does the owner, how to the developer, and how do we assist them in deploying and delivering that project.

[00:22:22] Jessica Busch: Jeff, Tom, thank you so much for your insights today. This has been wonderful and it’s clear after this discussion that if it wasn’t before that data centers and semiconductors it.

[00:22:34] Space just isn’t growing. It is truly transforming the entire construction industry. It’ll be really interesting to see what the future holds. And we will probably have to bring you back again for that discussion as we start to map that out. But for our listeners, thank you for joining us and if you want to learn more, please reach out to Cumming Group’s website, WWPS’s website.

[00:22:55] And if you enjoyed the episode, please remember to like and subscribe the Construction Insiders Podcast. Leave us a review and share it with your colleagues. So thank you, and until next time, let’s just keep building the future. Thank you.

[00:23:08] Brad Ducey: Thank you for joining us for the Construction Insiders Podcast.

[00:23:11] You can continue the conversation by leaving a comment, asking a question, or participating in our poll. You can also visit us at cumming-group.com for more great resources. From the most trusted team in the built environment, and don’t forget to subscribe to stay up to date on our latest episodes.