Tech giants can’t get data centers built fast enough. Construction stocks are ripping on the demand.

A slightly less glamorous group of AI beneficiaries are getting their moment in the spotlight: the staid construction and engineering companies performing the nuts-and-bolts work of clearing sites, pouring concrete, running wiring, and designing water and HVAC systems.

Analysts and tech executives say construction work itself has become another big bottleneck in the AI buildout, putting a significant amount of negotiating leverage in the hands of the companies performing the work.

Construction and engineering companies like Comfort Systems, MasTec, Sterling Infrastructure, and Everus Construction are seeing their profitability rise, and in some cases, hit record highs, as they find themselves in a strong position to negotiate with tech companies desperate to get data center “shells” — as the structures are commonly called — built and powered up as quickly as possible.

The S&P 1500 construction and engineering sub-index, a group of 16 mid-to-large cap companies, is up more than 25% in 2026 and has more than doubled over the past 12 months. (For comparison, the entire S&P composite 1500 is down slightly this year.)

For many of these companies, levels of profitability are hitting never-before-seen heights, as hard-hat executives find themselves, remarkably, in a powerful position to negotiate with the world’s largest companies trying frantically to spend a seemingly inexhaustible amount of money on AI.

The Takeaway

In part, contractors are benefiting from the clear imperative hyperscalers have to get data centers built as quickly as possible, as tech executives fixate on the lack of powered-up “shells” as the hurdle to maximizing AI-related profits. Late last year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, “It’s not a supply issue of chips; it’s actually the fact that I don’t have warm shelves to plug into.”

Analysts at Jefferies in a note last month reported that some 25 data centers had been delayed or canceled in January, a 56% increase from the prior month.