The rapid expansion of AI data centres is intensifying pressure on the construction supply chain and exposing weaknesses in project delivery. For developers and operators, speed to market is critical: schemes are capital-intensive, land-hungry and highly mobile, with customers able to switch to alternative global locations if one market cannot deliver on time.
Yet delivery programmes are becoming more complex and prone to delay. Public and political concerns about overdevelopment and local impacts are slowing planning, while access to water and power from state utilities can now take years rather than months, leaving completed facilities standing idle.
Turner & Townsend’s Data Centre Construction Cost Index 2025 identifies power availability as the single biggest threat to achieving committed schedules. However, survey respondents also highlighted construction-related risks, including design changes during delivery, equipment supply issues, regulatory hold-ups and labour constraints.
Critical equipment delivery is a particular pinch point. A majority of respondents (58%) reported that key equipment is delayed more than 10% of the time, and 21% said such delays occur “more often than not” or “consistently”. While 62% expressed at least moderate confidence in the supply chain’s ability to meet delivery dates over the next year, a sizeable minority remain worried.
In response, project controls are becoming more prominent across the data centre sector, with schedule management now seen as indispensable. Clients are increasingly formalising schedule processes to bring greater discipline, transparency and realism to programmes.
Recommended measures include developing pre-construction schedule templates that cover the full project lifecycle and reflect both current and future design scopes. These templates should balance aggressive speed-to-market targets with realistic delivery assumptions.
The adoption of enterprise scheduling software is also advised to create a single, central hub for programme data. A shared platform can improve visibility across the supply chain, support consistent reporting and help establish robust benchmarks for future schemes.
Schedule risk management is another key tool, enabling clients to quantify uncertainty and identify where mitigation is needed. By analysing risk within schedule templates, project teams can test the realism of forecast dates, determine appropriate contingency and focus interventions on activities that threaten the critical path.
Regular scenario planning sessions are encouraged to assess the impact of changes such as design revisions, equipment lead times or process improvements. Understanding how these variables affect float, critical path and completion dates allows earlier, evidence-based decision-making and more effective protection of delivery milestones.
For organisations running global or regional portfolios, a programme management office (PMO) model can help standardise systems and processes. Centralising functions such as procurement can unlock economies of scale, for example by aggregating demand into larger, multi-region contracts with major equipment suppliers.
Whatever the scale of operation, Turner & Townsend argues that procurement and contracting strategies should be under review. In a fast-moving market, more rigorous supplier screening can exclude consistently underperforming partners, while structured collaboration can strengthen relationships with those that deliver.
Contract models that share risk more evenly between client and contractor are seen as a way to close communication gaps. When risk allocation is perceived as fair, potential issues are more likely to be raised early and tackled jointly, rather than emerging late as disputes or claims.
Within data centre delivery, there is also growing use of “multi-prime” contracting, where several prime contractors are appointed to manage different workstreams in line with their specialist strengths. Owners typically appoint a project management consultancy to provide independent oversight and coordinate interfaces between these primes.
This approach can spread risk and make better use of available local capacity and expertise. However, it depends on strong upfront market intelligence to map the regional supply base and understand where individual contractors’ capabilities are best deployed.
Against a backdrop of constrained utilities, volatile supply chains and intense competitive pressure, the construction phase is one of the few levers clients can still tighten. By investing in robust schedule management, smarter procurement and more collaborative contracting, data centre developers have a better chance of bringing AI capacity online at the pace the market now demands.
