Who Actually Builds It
Equipment is only half the constraint. The other half is people — the firms and the trades who physically assemble the thing. A data center does not get built by an operator; it gets built by a general contractor or an engineering-procurement-construction firm coordinating an army of specialized trades. There are only so many of those firms with the scale and track record to deliver a hyperscale project, and only so many skilled electricians and pipefitters to go around. You cannot hire your way out of that overnight; skilled trades take years to train. So contractor and labor capacity is a real ceiling on how much the industry can build at once, no matter how much capital is chasing it.
Knowledge check
Why can't an operator with unlimited capital simply overcome a shortage of contractor and skilled-trade capacity by hiring more people?
Show the answer
Because skilled construction trades — electricians, pipefitters, and the like — take years of training and apprenticeship to produce, so the pool of qualified labor cannot be expanded quickly regardless of pay. Similarly, only a small number of contractors have the scale and track record to deliver hyperscale projects. Money can attract existing workers away from competitors, but it cannot create new skilled trades or experienced firms in the near term, so total industry build capacity is capped by the available workforce.