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831 data centers are under construction in the United States

• June 3, 2026
• Ed Gresser

FACT: 831 data centers are under construction in the United States.

THE NUMBERS: Taiwanese GDP growth* –

* Taiwan Directorate-General for Budget, Accounting, and Statistics for 2026 figures; IMF World Economic Outlook database for 21st-century average.

WHAT THEY MEAN: 

The Chinese calendar’s twelve animals and five elements, rotating on their 60-year cycle, converge to make 2026 a “Fire Horse” year. Horses are said to embody energy and independence; fire, passion and inspiration. Writing in Taipei-based CommonWealth Magazine, Judy Lin says such a year:

“Brings a surge of intensity, momentum, and transformative change. This once-in-60-
years combination amplifies courage and restlessness, rewarding bold action while
testing focus and restraint.” 

Taiwan’s stat people provide data support for Ms. Lin’s high-energy forecast: their laconic GDP release last Friday reports that — precisely as she was writing up the zodiac outlook — the Taiwanese economy was growing at a rate of 14.6%, and predicted 9.6% over the full year. Setting aside an anomalous 10.5% rebound after the financial crisis in 2010, that would be Taiwan’s biggest growth surge in 40 years and triple the island’s 21st-century average.

What has happened? The background is the worldwide, and particularly American, surge of investment into AI data centers. Some samples:

* McKinsey estimates $7 trillion going into data centers over the next five years, with 40% of it spent in the United States. The global total would account for about 1% of the world’s likely $690 trillion in GDP over these years, and the ~$2.8 trillion U.S. investment would be about 1.6% of U.S. GDP.

* UNCTAD says data center-building accounted for a fifth of the $1.6 trillion in “greenfield” FDI investment last year.

* DataCenterMap, which counts the number of actually operating data centers, reports 11,534 live worldwide, including 4,312 in the United States, and Bloomberg NEF says Americans are building 831 new ones.

In sum, lots of construction projects, huge amounts of money spent to build them, and as data centers prepare to go live, they quickly fill up with AI chips, server racks, motherboards, graphics processing units, cooling systems, CPUs, and the like. The world’s largest centers for production of these things are the three Science Park complexes Taiwan launched in the 1970s – Hsinchu, Southern Taiwan, Central Taiwan — which now serve as home bases for semiconductor and IT hardware manufacturers of the TSMC, UMC, MediaTek, Foxconn, etc. type.  For the past two years, they have been sending a torrent of this stuff from Taiwan – a recent Air Cargo News report suggests likely 1,500 tons of semiconductors and AI server racks arriving by plane daily, along with ships loaded with power distribution units, heavy cooling systems, and fiber-optics – to the new data centers Bloomberg describes.

U.S. trade data are a window on the scale of this flow. They show total imports from Taiwan more than tripling from $88 billion in 2023 to a likely total above $300 billion this year, and Taiwan overtaking Korea, Germany, Japan, and now China to trail only Canada and Mexico as a U.S. import source. Two quick tables:

1. U.S. goods imports 2023-2026

Census, Goods Trade by Country

2. Imports from Taiwan by product type, 2023-2026

USITC Dataweb, NAICS classifications

This explains the Fire Horse-style “intensity” and “momentum” in Taiwan’s economic data. On the U.S. side, IT goods have been so far mostly exempted from the tariff binge that has weighed down auto production, retail, chemical industries, and construction. So even as U.S. macro-econ data take on an alarmingly ‘stagflationary’ look – high inflation, low hiring, falling GDP growth, and collapsing consumer confidence – the data-center construction boom continues to offset at least some of the drag.

Big events, of course, raise complex questions: “transformative change” in social life and employment, the local impacts of these hundreds of construction projects on traffic, utility prices, and land use. If calendar animals and elements are of use, 2027 is a “Fire Goat” year, thought still to involve some intensity and momentum, but temper them with more reflection and creativity. For a look at what these might entail, close the horoscope tab and see PPI President Will Marshall’s thoughtful guide to policy on data centers and AI.

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

• Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
• Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
• Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
• Offer a positive alternative.

Fire Horse:

Zodiac animals and elements explained, from the U.S.-based Asia Society.

… and Taiwan’s CommonWealth Magazine explains the “Fire Horse” year.

The AI future:

PPI President Will Marshall on the road forward for AI and data center construction.

For a long read, Pope Leo XIV’s Magnifica Humanitas reflects on technology and society, human and artificial intelligence, common good, exclusion and communion, through a “Babel v. Jerusalem” lens.

Data on data centers:

McKinsey estimates the scale of worldwide data center investment and offers ideas for U.S. states.

UNCTAD on data centers as the top driver of foreign direct investment worldwide last year.

DataCenterMap.com counts data centers by country.

And Bloomberg NEF monitors data center building in the U.S.

Taiwan’s boom:

“TECRO” — the Taipei Economic & Cultural Relations Office — is Taiwan’s de facto Embassy
in DC.

The Directorate-General for Budget, Accounting, and Statistics has the most recent GDP growth
report.

And some growth context, using the IMF’s April 2026 “World Economic Outlook” 2025 growth estimates, supplemented for the U.S.by last Thursday’s downbeat BEA report on first-quarter growth:

And the sci/tech background:

Taiwan’s National Science and Technology Council

A Japanese/Taiwanese academic looks at Taiwan’s science parks as a successful industrial strategy model.

… and the Hsinchu Science Park.

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

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