Skanska signed a $1.2 billion contract on Aug. 20 to build four data centers in the southeastern United States. It won’t say for whom, or exactly where.
What’s in the contract
The four buildings total roughly 75,000 square meters, about 808,000 square feet. Scope covers shell construction plus interior fit-out for technical spaces, support areas and office functions, which is a fuller package than the shell-and-core work that dominates much of the hyperscale market. Construction starts in the third quarter of 2026 and completion is expected in the third quarter of 2028. The value, about SEK 11.2 billion, books into Skanska’s U.S. order intake for Q3.
The client appears in the release only as “an existing client.” Skanska names no state. For a contract this size that’s unusual in a press release and entirely normal in the data center market, where the tenant’s identity is often the most closely held item in the deal.
Two years of work at one price
The eight-quarter schedule is the number worth sitting with. Delivering 808,000 square feet of technical space across four buildings by Q3 2028 means the mechanical and electrical procurement is either already placed or is going out now, and the long-lead items on this kind of job, switchgear and generators and chillers, are exactly where the market has been tight.
Booking a fixed value against that risk is a bet on escalation, and the fit-out scope is where it lands. Shell work is predictable. Technical fit-out prices move with the equipment market, which is why a lot of hyperscale contracts split those two scopes across different agreements and different contractors.
Where the demand is coming from
The load behind contracts like this one is showing up in generation decisions half a continent away. Ontario Power Generation cites data center and electrification demand arriving faster than new supply as part of the case for the Darlington refurbishment, which just secured 3,512 MW for another thirty years. The southeast has its own version of that arithmetic, and it’s why these four buildings have a construction schedule at all.
One thing worth not doing: don’t infer a state. “Southeast region” is all Skanska published, and the difference between Georgia, Virginia and Alabama on a job this size is a different labor market and a different interconnection queue. Skanska USA Building is headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey; the parent, Skanska AB, is Stockholm-based.