Microsoft Cut $5 Billion From Data Centre Spending, MEP Contractors Lost 15% in a Day, and Accenture Just Entered Construction With 5,000 People.
Microsoft Cut $5 Billion From Data Centre Spending, MEP Contractors Lost 15% in a Day, and Accenture Just Entered Construction With 5,000 People.
This week’s briefing covers three things that landed in the same week and all point at whether the data centre boom is about to change shape.
This week’s episode is sponsored by Buildots, the construction intelligence platform turning site data into actionable insights for over 100 of the largest owners and contractors including Turner, Multiplex and Vinci Construction. Find out how to join them at https://buildots.com
First, Microsoft. A generator fire in Texas, late hardware deliveries, cabling problems, and a $1 million fine for running generators without permits on a New Jersey site. At the end of October Microsoft’s finance chief cut this year’s data centre spending forecast by $5 billion, citing third party capacity delays. Microsoft has now tightened oversight on three neo-cloud companies, walked away from a $3 billion deal in Texas due to grid delays, and cancelled a letter of intent for 1.35 gigawatts in West Virginia. The day after the American midterms, where voters passed 40 of 41 ballot measures putting new restrictions on data centre construction, Comfort Systems fell 15%, Quantum fell 12% and the NASDAQ dropped 5.5%. On the same day Skanska matched its all time record for new orders, with roughly a third in data centres, and its CEO said the company is turning some of that work away because it cannot find the right electrical subcontractors.
Then Accenture Construct. In September Accenture launched a new global business with more than 5,000 people aimed at the owners of big projects. Accenture puts that market at $260 billion a year. Owen interviewed CEO Adam Shaw this week. His argument is that on a large project an owner might hire six different firms, all of whom could complete their own scope successfully, and the project could still fail because of the gaps between them. Today the owner carries all of those gaps. Accenture’s pitch is to sit on the owner’s side of the table as one accountable partner. Between 73 and 77% of senior leaders in Accenture’s research said they were having a positive influence on cost and schedule. Only 13% of workers agreed.
Then the market numbers. US construction fell 1.9% in September when economists expected a small rise. Excluding data centres and power, private non-residential work was down 7.8%. UK housebuilding PMI came in at 35.1. The Bank of England raised rates to 4%, its first increase since August 2023. The forecasters agree on which parts of the market are growing and which are shrinking. They do not agree on what any of it means.
Also sponsored by Miter, the AI-powered operating system built for construction that connects payroll, HR, field operations and job costing in one platform. Today 1 in 50 US construction workers is paid on Miter every week. Learn more at https://www.miter.com/?utm_source=bricks-and-bytes&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=bb-sponsorship-q4-2026&utm_content=executive-briefing
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