This article was originally published in Data Center Dynamics by Barney Dixon

June 17, 2026 | LINK

Are US construction supply chains buckling under the weight of the AI revolution?

Data centers and their infrastructure have become the new priority for US builders and manufacturers. And, according to Deloitte, while overall construction spending has declined in 2025, investment in structures is set to grow by 2026, driven by AI-related data center spending. This correlation is depicted across industries, as AI props up worldwide economic growth.

For every announcement made around new compute capacity or a new data center campus, entire industries of manufacturers, importers, distributors, and laborers are invoked to make it happen.

But, under the hood, the companies supporting this growth are struggling.

Charlie Minutella, CEO of RapidRatings, says that these manufacturers and builders are “not in a position to support the increased expectations of them to build these data centers.”

RapidRatings, which provides financial health analysis on supply chains, paints a stark picture of the industry. According to Minutella, 20 percent of companies that support data center construction are already at a “high risk of bankruptcy.”

The RapidRatings’ data shows that both public and private companies across key sectors for data center construction are facing these issues, with between 20 and 30 percent of companies supporting non-residential building construction, utility system construction, semiconductor and other electronic equipment manufacturing, and electric power generation, transmission, and distribution in significant financial distress.

“Our analysis covers not only the tech sector, but also automotive, complex and diversified industrials, and manufacturing,” Minutella says, “we cover the whole span from the very top, all the way to the component part manufacturers.”

“We have a comprehensive view of the private companies that make up this ecosystem. What we're seeing is based on the actual financials of these companies – and our model is highly predictive in determining whether or not a company will go bankrupt.”

Minutella says that these companies wouldn’t be in better shape even in a scenario where they had 50 percent revenue growth.

He argues that those at the top of the chain have not thought through the flow of capital. They’ve set aggressive goals and agreed impressive deals with infrastructure providers, but when these providers experience delays themselves, the domino effect is significant.

Citing a high-profile example, Minutella notes: “CoreWeave has had delays in its data center construction.”

The AI cloud computing company, which is backed by Nvidia, scaled back its annual revenue forecast late last year due to delays at a third-party partner. CoreWeave has announced significant investment in AI-data center capacity in the past two years and has raised significant funding in both equity financing and debt capital commitments.

Elsewhere, OpenAI’s decision not to take additional capacity at the Stargate Abilene Campus is likely to have had a knock-on effect for companies working on additional buildings at the campus, though Microsoft looks set to scoop up the excess planned data center space.

Much of the industry’s modern growth is built on the speculative revenue envisioned by an AI revolution, and Minutella says it’s unlikely that the issues faced by the construction sector will get the attention they deserve until there’s a “real set of defaults,” despite the massive impact they could have on realizing this promise.

“There's definitely kinks in the supply chain. When the data centers get built, the full switch-on isn’t happening,” he argues.

“While private credit has come in and offered financing to these companies, a lot of those financing terms are based on milestones and covenants. So while some of these companies are getting capital to get off the ground, everything needs to line up. Otherwise, there could be instances where they might lose the company, lose a significant portion of the company, or the funding would dry up.”

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RapidRatings recently shared critical data with Data Center Dynamics on the performance of suppliers supporting AI infrastructure.

As RapidRatings CEO Charlie Minutella explains, data centers depend on sophisticated suppliers that are financially stable and well resourced enough to scale quickly. Yet many of the suppliers expected to meet this demand are struggling, and the pressure intensifies under hyperscale growth scenarios.

We stress-tested the impact of 50% revenue growth on data center suppliers, and the results were striking: many suppliers become more vulnerable under high-growth conditions.

• Nearly 1 in 5 suppliers was already high risk before AI infrastructure scaling. Under stress-test scenarios, nearly 50% of large private suppliers become high risk or very high risk of bankruptcy.
• Across nonresidential construction suppliers, the share rated low risk fell from 60% to 45% under growth scenarios, suggesting limited capacity to scale.
• Across critical subsectors, growth raises financial risk rather than strengthening capacity.

As Minutella told Data Center Dynamics, without systemic changes, “whether that’s government-backed lending, or a significant dip in interest rates,” there could be a significant impact on the expected data center build-out over the next few years.

“Where they have a lot of debt on their balance sheets, if their interest payments go down and cash availability improves, that will help a bit,” he says, “but I think if all remains the same, if tariffs exist, if high interest rates exist, if lack of government intervention subsidies persist, then it’s going to be one of those situations where the flow of capital has a big impact on the success rate of these data center build outs.”

For tech companies, data center operators, and suppliers across the AI infrastructure ecosystem, monitoring supply chain resilience is essential.

Even suppliers that appear healthy can quickly be affected by external pressures. That is why a single point-in-time assessment is not enough; teams should evaluate suppliers throughout the full lifecycle of the relationship.

Learn how to reduce supplier instability across your supply chain.