---
title: "Building AI Infrastructure Responsibly: ER Steel on the Evolving Demands of Data Center Expansion"
url: https://daily.dev/posts/building-ai-infrastructure-responsibly-er-steel-on-the-evolving-demands-of-data-center-expansion-5xsiyk8sg
source_url: https://thenextweb.com/news/building-ai-infrastructure-responsibly-er-steel-data-center-expansion
type: article
source: "The Next Web"
published: 2026-07-01T14:33:43.190Z
updated: 2026-07-01T14:42:42.011Z
tags: ["ai-infrastructure"]
reading_time: 5
upvotes: 0
comments: 0
language: en
---

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# Building AI Infrastructure Responsibly: ER Steel on the Evolving Demands of Data Center Expansion

**[The Next Web](https://daily.dev/sources/tnw)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments

## Summary

Global data center capacity could nearly double by 2030, driven by AI workloads that may account for half of all data center activity. ER Steel, a structural steel fabricator, argues the real bottleneck is not compute power but construction coordination, grid access delays (now exceeding four years in some markets), and long-term operational planning. Average build costs rose from $7.7M to $10.7M per megawatt between 2020 and 2025. ER Steel advocates for integrated engineering-fabrication-logistics management, modular prefabrication, diversified energy strategies including on-site generation and battery storage, and environmental stewardship around water and community impact as key pillars of responsible infrastructure development.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://thenextweb.com/news/building-ai-infrastructure-responsibly-er-steel-data-center-expansion>

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Tags: [#ai-infrastructure](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-infrastructure)

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