
The rapid rise of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) means the data center industry needs to deliver 2.5x more capacity by end of 2025 according to Savills. This unprecedented demand, coupled with increased complexity of data center delivery, as well as labor shortages and inflation, places data center companies at a pivotal crossroads. There is a clear opportunity for data center owners and builders to use the same AI and cloud technologies that create this demand to transform how data centers are built, operated, and delivered. By integrating AI, the industry can significantly improve decision making, risk management and liberate processes from resource constraints. This ensures that data centers are built faster, smarter, safer and more sustainably, delivering significant savings and shareholder value.
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Meeting Demand with INTELLIGENCE
Current data center construction methods are inefficient and manual. According to flexible energy and HVAC provider Aggreko, only 8% of data center projects are completed on time, with rework accounting for 12% of total construction costs. Traditional construction processes simply cannot keep up with surging global demand. Data center sites are also highly complex, with thousands of complex installations happening simultaneously in proximity. To make it worse, this growing complexity is exacerbated by the skilled labor shortage and rising material costs, creating an urgent need for smarter, faster solutions.

Unveiling the Power of AI: From Site Walks to Scalable Insights
The RIGHT AI TECHNOLOGY can address the challenges of speed, predictability, and sustainability in data center construction and automate core construction processes traditionally reliant on manual labor, multi-week analysis, and many siloed reporting systems.
Currently, visual sensor technologies like Lidar can capture mm-accurate 3D spatial data from up to a 100,000-square-meters data center site in an hour, improving site coverage 15 times. The integration of these sensors with 3D computer vision and AI technology is transforming construction processes for data centers by addressing the limitations of 2D AI.

In addition, 3D AI methods enable automated generation of intelligent as-built twins that fill the gap between design and operations, offering significant additional benefits to data companies.
Key Benefits: Building Faster, Smarter, and More Sustainably
The benefits of integrating AI into data center delivery are extensive. Beyond reducing delays and rework costs, AI enhances decision-making and risk management across the board. Connected and scalable insights enable the site workforce, project managers and executives to make smart decisions that accelerate time to market and prevent costly mistakes, delays, and waste. According to Pi Labs, failure to adopt AI could contribute 2.3 gigatonnes of global CO2 emissions caused by construction rework. Using AI, however, enables data center owners and builders to reduce these rework costs and the associated waste by 30% and 10% respectively.
Other key benefits include:
1. Accelerated delivery timelines, timely decision-making, and agile risk management, are rated as the top requirements by the data center industry.
2. Enhanced productivity and profit margins necessary for building more data centers in shorter timeframes in a market that is resource constrained.
3. Objective reporting, automated cost control, and streamlined payments, enable the supply chain to significantly reduce time to predictable cashflow by half.
4. The ability to build greener data centers with lower CO2 footprint, enabling hyperscale and collocation providers and all the businesses using cloud to meet their sustainability requirements at a global level.

A Future Built on AI
The use of AI for data center construction is not just a trend—it is a necessity for companies seeking to thrive in an increasingly competitive and resource-constrained market. By embracing these technologies, data center companies not only can deliver smarter, safer, and more sustainable digital infrastructure faster to the market but also, they can foster the creation of new digital business models that safeguard competitive advantage and shareholder value.
This accelerated transformation does not end at construction. As digital twin and AI technology continue to evolve with speed, the possibilities for smart operations, reduced maintenance costs, and cross-portfolio efficiencies are limitless.
Get in touch
For more information on this article and to speak to someone on our team about the opportunity to use scalable AI insights to build your data centers faster, cheaper, and more sustainably, get in touch with us at contilio.official@contilio.com or through our website here.