Private equity is following the AI data center boom into the trades that build and equip facilities.

PE activity in construction and engineering hit a record 529 deals in the second quarter, up 56.5% from a year earlier, according to estimates in PitchBook's Q2 Construction and Engineering report. Deal value slipped slightly from the prior quarter as investors prioritized smaller deals over marquee platforms.

Data center construction spending rose 46% from a year earlier in June. Stripping out data centers, private nonresidential spending instead fell 7.9%, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of Census data.

"Interest rates are not going to affect deals in data centers," said Jim Corridore, PitchBook's lead industrials analyst and the report's author. "The money is there. The demand is there."

The dealmaking flurry has concentrated in specialty trades needed for site work, electrification and cooling.

HVAC contractors logged 76 PE deals worth $3.8 billion in the first half of 2026, already surpassing the 63 deals completed in all of 2025. Electrical contractors recorded 38 deals, also topping the 37 completed last year. Plumbing and water businesses logged 21 deals through June, compared with 24 in 2025.

"We think there's going to be a lot of interest around equipment recycling, directional boring, fiber optics, electrical engineering," said Cory Markling, partner and head of private equity deal services at EisnerAmper. "Just your general real estate buildout—the ancillary services that you need to build up the infrastructure around these data centers."

The build-out is keeping contractors busy. Those working in data centers carry an average backlog of 11 months, versus 8.5 months for everyone else.

"If you think about where we are in the ball game of data centers," said Markling, "we're in the first inning, maybe second inning."

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This article originally appeared on PitchBook News