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construction demand for facilities related to artificial intelligence this year still has considerable runway, executives said during Jacobs’ fiscal first-quarter earnings call on Tuesday.
Pipeline growth reached double-digit year-over-year rates across the company’s major verticals, with life sciences and advanced manufacturing around 25% and critical infrastructure work up more than 50%, CEO Bob Pragada said on the call. This growth represents a 12-18 month backlog across all markets, including the Middle East and Europe.
Much of this jump is linked AI-powered projects.
“If you think about the speed at which we are going right now, especially not only in the private sector, but also in the water and transportation market, the schedules and the delivery model of these cannot be done without the use of the AI platform,” Pragada said during the call. “It’s driving portfolio growth through differentiating our award rates.”
Bob Pragada
Courtesy of Jacobs
To support this, the Dallas-based contractor has doubled the size of its AI development and consulting efforts, including implementing tools to automate tasks and improve prediction on-site analytics.
“In the field, we’re using a strong predictive analytics platform called Acuity to really get in front of field-level issues that are emerging in real time,” Pragada said. “This has been a real game changer for us. We have Acuity deployed in all of our end markets in the field program management work that we do.”
Key work still revolves around data center and semiconductor projects, according to Jacobs.
In these projects, Pragada said the owners often buy large electrical equipment directly, but still hire Jacobs to integrate them into the facility. For this reason, there are now more wins that extend to the balance between plant construction and utility interconnections, in addition to design work. This allows Jacobs to earn commissions even when major components are streamed.
Beyond advanced facilities, Jacobs also reported strong demand in the water sectorboth in the US and internationally in the quarter. Bookings in water-related construction have posted gains for several quarters, said Venk Nathamuni, chief financial officer at Jacobs.
Numbers Q1
Jacobs posted a profit of $125.51 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2026, compared with a loss of $18.13 million in the same period last year. Revenue for the quarter reached $3.29 billion, a gain of about 12.3% from $2.93 billion a year ago.
The money portfolio rose to $26.3 billion for the full fiscal year 2025, a roughly 20.6 percent gain from $21.82 billion in fiscal 2024, according to the earnings report.
“The clear drivers were larger-scale awards for data centers, life sciences and advanced manufacturing,” Baird senior research analyst Andrew Wittmann wrote in a research note. “Apparently good net demand is holding up, execution is as expected.”
