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When he joined the Midwest’s largest contractor 17 years ago, Anthony Johnson thought a move to Clayco’s office in St. Louis would be temporary: a five-year stop before returning to Minnesota.
Instead, the energy and enthusiasm of the organization turned five years into nearly two decades, a tenure during which Johnson helped drive Clayco’s growth as a leader in advanced manufacturing and data center construction .
Now, nearly 20 years later, Johnson has taken the helm CEO of Chicago-based Clayco.
His move to the first role aligns with the release of Clayco Computea dedicated business unit focused on high-tech construction projects. The new division positions Clayco firmly within the advanced technology construction sector, including the ongoing data center construction boom.
This boom shows no signs of slowing down. For example, a joint venture between OpenAI, Softbank and Oracle announced a $500 billion initiative at the White House on Tuesday to accelerate the development of AI infrastructure. The plan includes building up to 20 data centers by 2028.
Here, Johnson talks to Construction Dive about the vision behind Clayco Compute, the challenges in building hyperscale facilities, and how the company plans to lead a increasingly competitive market.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
CONSTRUCTION DIVE: How does the launch of Clayco Compute help advance the company’s work in building advanced technology?
ANTHONY JOHNSON: We’re already one of the top five data center builders in the US, with 57 active projects nationwide with the largest technology and hyperscale companies. In 2024 alone, our data center projects generated $3.6 billion in revenue, which accounted for half of our total revenue last year and was more than double the revenue we generated from data center construction. data in 2023. And we anticipate data center construction revenue to come. over $4.6 billion by 2026, so we’re clearly talking about a high-growth, high-potential and extremely competitive sector.
The hyperscale data center market is expected to grow 10% to 20% annually over the next five years, and at Clayco, many of the projects in our pipeline to 2025 are mission-critical technical projects such as data centers hyperscale data, quantum computing and advanced manufacturing. facilities
Establishing Clayco Compute as a dedicated business unit allows us to be hyper-focused on these types of projects while differentiating ourselves in terms of the unique experience and services we bring to clients.
What led to the decision to establish Clayco Compute as a dedicated business unit rather than continuing to build advanced technology within the existing structure?
As much as we have already worked in the data center and quantum computing space, there is still a lot of opportunity to build both in terms of projects and organization in this sector. We like to bet on markets like advanced technology construction where we can differentiate ourselves, and the launch of Clayco Compute is our first step towards that.
Anthony Johnson
Permission granted by Clayco
Our vertically integrated platform is what really sets Clayco Compute apart and provides customers with enhanced capabilities that our competitors simply don’t have. Clayco Compute offers a full turnkey design and build solution for customers. Not only are we a construction company, our platform offers architecture, design, engineering, real estate development and self-execution capabilities.
Clayco Compute will combine our industry-leading expertise with our proven track record of executing and tackling our customers’ toughest challenges. The creation of this dedicated business unit will allow us to sharpen our focus to better serve our clients and help them achieve their goals.
With data center construction growing rapidly, what challenges do you see in meeting the demands of these large-scale projects?
The biggest problem we face is that the demand for data centers and quantum computing facilities is outstripping the growth and supply of transmission and power generation, and our customers are constantly asking us to help them solve your energy challenges.
One of our top priorities is to address these issues through renewable energy and other power generation solutions, such as large-scale construction and development of utilities or microgrid solutions. We will work to expand these capabilities in the near term.
How do interest rates and inflation affect project planning and execution in the data center construction industry?
The demand for these types of projects is massive, so I don’t anticipate financial constraints having a big impact on data center construction.
There is actually a race to build these facilities right now.
On the one hand, you have the biggest hyperscalers and tech companies competing with each other to get these facilities built to keep up with demand and provide a competitive advantage. On the other hand, there is also a race from a national security perspective between the United States and the rest of the world to determine who is the technological leader in terms of computing and artificial intelligence.
The main bottleneck for these projects comes down to energy and power challenges, and I think that is the biggest problem to overcome more than any financial constraints.
Any other trends around data center construction that you think are important to mention?
I think it’s important to emphasize what a game-changer AI has been in this industry. The market was already very hot, but AI has not only caused demand to explode, it has changed where that demand can be deployed. New geographies are being created outside of the typical regional clusters that the cloud industry served.
But again, high-density AI deployments require a lot of power. We have great relationships with utilities across the country, allowing us to help our customers find sites that work best for them and meet their project needs.
But by the same token, we also want to be good stewards of the environment, and it’s important to be able to deliver the energy these projects need in an environmentally friendly way. We are working to solve these challenges through sustainable design practices, sustainable construction practices, while developing renewable energy sources.
Ultimately, the most important industry trend and challenge is meeting the demand for AI and quantum computing, and the energy and power these facilities require, in a sustainable manner. And with our vertically integrated platform, Clayco Compute is perfectly positioned to deliver these solutions to our customers.
