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Brian Strawberry

Brian Strawberry

Chief Economist at FMI, leading market sizing, forecasting, and construction material pricing for the engineering and construction industry.

Aug 17, 2026

7:08
Are they still the biggest growth story in design and construction? What are you watching most closely as AI-driven demand continues to expand here?
7:18
Yeah, it's really interesting.
7:20
I've been watching data centers for, gosh, at least 10 years.
7:25
And so to put this all in perspective, as of five years ago, 2021, the data center spend is 6x.
7:35
So significant growth, even before AI kind of took hold.
7:41
Now that AI adoption is part of the story now, And, you know, where that goes, it's hard to say, but we've got robotics to think about and, you know, different, you know, gen AI, quantum computing, all kinds of things that seem to continue to push the demand story for data centers.
8:02
It is definitely the biggest growth story in our forecast.

5 MINS LATER

13:35
a demand imbalance.

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