“It is possible that the amount invested in AI in the U.S. since the middle of 2022 exceeds all prior investments in the entire tech industry,” Roger McNamee, an early backer of Facebook in his 40-year career as a technology investor, said in an email. “That alone should give everyone pause.”

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The data center construction boom is sucking up people as well as computer chips. In U.S. communities where the facilities are being erected, construction firms and their workers are raking in money. But that activity has probably sidelined other types of building projects that the U.S. needs, said Anirban Basu, chief economist for Associated Builders and Contractors, a construction industry trade group.

There are not enough skilled electricians and other specialized trade workers for both data center projects and other complex construction, Basu said, such as apartment buildings, factories and health care facilities. AI data centers tend to be more lucrative for construction firms, which relegates anything else to a lower priority.