News Breakbulk & Project Cargo
Datacenters in the US are projected to grow to more than 480 million square feet by 2029. Shutterstock. com
“ Suddenly, no one wants to get very precise as to where all of this stuff comes from,” said Thompson.“ Most companies have some manufacturing in the United States, but it may just be assembly.”
Destination considerations
Much of the datacenter construction is taking place in rural areas of Ohio, Wyoming, Virginia and Texas. That means things like the availability of power and roads designed to handle heavy cargo pose significant infrastructure challenges.
Much of the equipment is brought in and assembled locally before installation, but large components continue to pose hurdles for the projects. Additionally, beyond the roads, there is a need for terminals designed to handle sufficient pounds-per-square-foot for the heavyweight components being used.
While many of the existing datacenters were constructed near hubs and urban areas, there is a growing need to serve more rural areas with lower network connectivity. As such, the development of centers in those areas often presents a catch-22: depending on existing utility infrastructure but demanding increased output from that same infrastructure.
“ In addition to the traditional hubs, there’ s also emergent places, especially because of the increase of the need,” said Perkins.“ That capacity is driving more demand to the utility system, and the utility is not quick enough to catch up to provide the energy required by these datacenters, forcing datacenters to go where energy is available.”
While much of the infrastructure components are subject to manufacturing hurdles, transformer availability continues to pose a critical issue, Thompson said. The datacenter projects— costing about $ 10 million per megawatt— usually take around 12 to 18 months in the US, with two to three years needed in other countries, he said.
While the US tends to get the projects done faster, there are still delays, especially on the manufacturing side. As such, many project managers have begun to get ahead of their procurement schedules, opting to head off any growing backlog.
“ We see a lot of providers, operators, try to secure the supply of key parts and equipment way ahead of time, putting orders in a year or two ahead of their schedule to try and secure the supply,” Perkins said.
The main heavy-lift components needed for datacenters are cooling infrastructure, such as large-scale air conditioners, and backup power infrastructure like batteries, diesel generators and transformers.
“ A lot of the delays are in getting these large-scale transformers,” said Thompson.“ It seems to me that manufacturing can’ t keep up. Along with diesel generators; the leads times on those keep getting longer.”
Both Perkins and Thompson agreed that tariffs imposed by the Trump administration in April— and then paused roughly a month later— have exacerbated concerns around sourcing.
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“ A lot of the delays are in getting these large-scale transformers. Manufacturing can’ t keep up.”
There are also the accompanying power centers to construct, needed to supply the vast amounts of energy needed for datacenters and offering another cargo avenue for the heavy-lift industry.
“ Datacenters do not want to build their own power plants; that’ s not their goal,” said Amy Groeschel, principal research analyst, costs and technology, at S & P Global Commodity Insights.“ They would much rather take power from the grid, so the siting of those datacenters will become very key.”
And while the growth in datacenter development poses a hurdle for manufacturers, it also offers an opportunity for project cargo vessel operators.
“ The time on the water is back to the normal situation,” Perkins said.“ It was chaos during the pandemic and for a short time post-pandemic, but I think that the shipment part is [ back to normal ] already. I think the challenge is specifically with manufacturing capability.”
email: laura. robb @ spglobal. com
June 2025 | Journal of Commerce 17