AI Data center construction set to strain shrinking US trucking capacity

AI data center construction is emerging as a major source of US freight demand, absorbing
trucking capacity as the industry’s available fleet continues to shrink.

The US has added roughly 20 gigawatts (GW) of data center capacity since the generative AI
boom began in 2023, according to Dean Croke, principal analyst at DAT Freight & Analytics.
Croke estimates each gigawatt of expansion requires about 100,000 truckloads, implying
roughly 2 million truckloads have already been generated.

Much more freight could be coming. Wood Mackenzie expects US data center capacity to
increase from approximately 24 GW to 110 GW between 2026 and 2030. Applying Croke’s
estimate to that 86 GW expansion implies another 8.6 million truckloads.

“Every major component of the buildout moves by truck: generators, transformers, cooling
systems, structural steel,” Melissa Suedbeck, vice president of operations at TA Dedicated, told
the Journal of Commerce. She said data centers are already driving a “real and sustained
increase” in demand for open-deck capacity.

That demand is arriving as trucking supply contracts. Large publicly traded truckload carriers
have cut their truck counts 15.5% since 2022, according to the Journal of Commerce Truckload
Capacity Index, while the American Transportation Research Institute estimates fleets have cut
2.4% of their trucks and idled another 10%.

The immediate impact is concentrated in flatbed, open-deck and specialized trucking, where
data centers compete with construction, energy and heavy manufacturing for equipment.
Landstar System CEO Frank Lonegro said in July that the carrier continues to see strong data
center demand and a need for additional capacity.

But the impact could extend beyond those segments. Trucks hauling data center freight are
unavailable to other shippers, while projects in rural areas can pull equipment away from major
freight markets. “It’s dislocating that capacity by sending it to destinations like North Dakota,”
Prather said. “We need to get the truck back to somewhere that it can pick up its next load.”

With millions of additional truckloads potentially entering a smaller US trucking market through
2030, data center construction could further tighten capacity and increase competition for
trucks, particularly in open-deck and specialized freight. “If I wanted to really make money in
trucking, I’d go and do heavy haul for the next four years,” Croke said.