America Is Building Again – Fast
After decades of offshoring and stagnation, the United States is in the midst of a construction boom for next-generation industry. Data centers, chip fabrication plants, and battery gigafactories – the backbone of artificial intelligence and electrification – are moving from plans to active jobsites at an unprecedented pace. These aren’t just artist’s renderings or press releases; they’re real projects with steel rising and crews on site.
The federal government is even pushing this momentum further – in 2025 it directed agencies to speed up permits for AI mega-data centers on federal land to accelerate development. Meanwhile, the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act has already committed over $32 billion in grants across 48 U.S. semiconductor manufacturing projects (spanning 23 states) to reshore chip production. Similarly, a wave of EV battery factories is underway: in 2019 the U.S. had just 4 battery cell plants; by 2024 there are 32 battery factories either planned, under construction, or operational nationwide. In short, America’s industrial capacity is being rebuilt at a speed and scale not seen in generations.
This urgency evokes comparisons to past national efforts. The current goal isn’t a Moon landing or wartime victory, but it feels like a new space race in its own right – a race to build the infrastructure of the future faster than economic and geopolitical rivals. And as in earlier eras, building faster than anyone thought possible will be the deciding factor.
Parallels from the Space Race and World War II
We’ve seen this kind of all-out building drive before – and won. In the 1960s, the Apollo program was not just a scientific feat but an industrial triumph. To send astronauts to the Moon, the U.S. marshalled an enormous workforce and supply chain. North American Aviation’s factory in Downey, California (which built Apollo spacecraft) swelled to 25,000 employees during Apollo’s peak. The Apollo program ultimately enlisted 400,000 workers at 20,000 companies and cost $25 billion (over $150 billion in today’s dollars). That massive network delivered hardware at a stunning pace: NASA developed, tested, and launched the 363-foot Saturn V Moon rocket in just five years, and 13 Saturn V rockets were produced and flown from 1967–1973. Each Saturn V contained over 3 million parts – all designed and built with slide rules, hand-drawn plans, and no prior roadmap. Supply chains couldn’t wait for perfect specs; they iterated and delivered in parallel. The result was an engineering marvel that worked on the first try and never suffered a launch failure. Apollo proved that, under national pressure, American industry could coordinate tens of thousands of suppliers and push technology frontiers on an impossibly tight schedule.
Even before Apollo, during World War II, the U.S. set the standard for rapid industrial scaling. Nowhere was this more evident than in the Kaiser Shipyards, where the approach was “quantity over elegance.” Kaiser pioneered modular, prefabricated ship construction that turned into national muscle on an assembly-line scale. Liberty cargo ships – vital for the war effort – were built from prefabricated sections manufactured all around the country and then assembled at shipyards in a matter of days. Early in the war it took over 200 days to build a Liberty ship, but by 1942 American workers had cut that to an average of about 70 days. At peak output, U.S. yards were launching roughly three Liberty ships per day – an almost unimaginable feat of productivity.
The Liberty Ship SS Robert E. Peary (built by Kaiser’s Richmond yard) on launch day in November 1942. This vessel was assembled in just 4 days and 15 hours as a publicity demonstration of the shipyards’ speed. Such feats exemplified how prefabrication and round-the-clock labor enabled U.S. yards to eventually launch three ships per day on average, overwhelming the enemy with sheer output.
The WWII shipbuilding miracle wasn’t about finesse – many Liberty ships were fairly rudimentary and dubbed “ugly ducklings” – but output was everything. Prefabrication was the key. As historian Joshua Smith noted, the concept of building components in separate factories and then quickly assembling them “was revolutionary,” enabling inexperienced workers to put together complex ships rapidlybowdoin.edu. Welding was used instead of rivets, which made assembly faster and training easier, allowing a more diverse workforce (including women and unskilled recruits) to contributebowdoin.edu. In fact, welding was easier to teach and required less physical strength than traditional rivet work, meaning thousands of new tradespeople could be brought up to speed quickly – a lesson in workforce agility under pressurebowdoin.edu. The Kaiser shipyards even provided unheard-of worker benefits (childcare, health care) to attract and retain labor, foreshadowing today’s efforts to make trades appealing to a new generationbowdoin.edu. In sum, WWII proved that with modular methods, workforce innovation, and relentless focus on speed, American industry could out-build anyone.
Today’s Electrification at Scale
Fast forward to today: the scale is different, but the pressure feels familiar. Instead of ships and rockets, we’re racing to construct data centers, clean energy infrastructure, and factories. Consider the demands of artificial intelligence: a single AI supercomputing data center can draw 100+ megawatts of power, roughly enough to power 80,000 US homes. And these centers are not going up one at a time – dozens or even hundreds may be needed in short order. Analysts project that AI data centers will require 123 gigawatts of power by 2035, a staggering thirtyfold increase from about 4 GW in 2024. This implies constructing scores of large facilities annually just to keep up with AI demand. It’s not just the servers, either. Each new campus needs massive support systems: high-voltage transmission lines and substations to feed those energy-hungry processors, plus cooling plants, backup generators, and concrete galore. Multiply that across the country, and the challenge extends far beyond tech companies – it strains utilities, construction firms, and equipment suppliers alike.
Similar surges are happening in other sectors. The drive for semiconductor self-sufficiency has prompted companies like Intel, TSMC, Samsung and others to break ground on multi-billion-dollar fabs in states from Arizona to Ohio. As noted, over $32 billion in federal incentives is already fueling new chip fabs that will collectively add over $300 billion in private investment and create tens of thousands of jobs. These chip plants are gargantuan projects in their own right, often $10–20 billion each and as complex as anything built in the 20th century. Meanwhile, the clean energy transition – bolstered by 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act – has automakers and battery companies scrambling to build battery gigafactories for electric vehicles. From virtually zero a few years ago, the U.S. is on track to have over 30 battery plants online in the coming years, representing over $110 billion in investment by 2030. Each of these facilities (often called “gigafactories”) must be constructed on an aggressive timeline to meet EV production goals.
The common thread is time pressure. The nation is attempting to onshore and build out critical infrastructure faster than traditional processes typically allow. There is broad agreement that these projects are essential – for economic competitiveness, supply chain security, climate goals, and more. But the pace of deployment is straining our current systems. This is where we risk falling behind. In the past, urgency spurred extraordinary measures (like Apollo’s concurrent engineering or Kaiser’s prefab yard). Today, despite the clear need, projects can still bog down due to slow permitting, labor shortages, and supply bottlenecks. The question is: can we streamline and scale up our building capacity to meet this surge, as we did in past eras?
To close this gap, industry and government will need to move with the kind of decisiveness and ingenuity that served the USA well in the past. We’ve done it before. Here are four key things we must do – and fast – to ensure we can do it again:
1. Treat Prefabrication as Critical Infrastructure.
Modernize building methods by massively adopting modular and prefab construction for everything from data centers to power plants. Off-site fabrication of standardized components can speed up project timelines by 20–50% while also cutting costs. This means factory-assembling electrical skids, pump rooms, wall panels – even entire modules – and then installing them on-site in a fraction of the time.
Prefab is no longer a “nice-to-have”; it’s becoming essential for meeting demand quickly. For instance, data center builders are increasingly using prefabricated power and cooling modules that arrive ready to plug in, shaving months off schedules. Likewise, renewable developers are deploying solar and battery farms with modular kits to accelerate rollout. Embracing prefab at scale can relieve on-site labor needs, improve quality, and compress schedules dramatically. In short, build in the factory whenever possible, so that on the jobsite it’s mainly assembly – not slow bespoke construction. This approach was a game-changer in WWII shipyards, and today’s projects stand to gain similar efficiencies. We should consider prefab components as standard infrastructure inputs (just like steel or concrete), not as experimental extras.
2. Unclog the Permitting Pipeline. Streamline and synchronize permitting across federal, state, and local levels so that vital projects aren’t stuck in bureaucratic limbo.
The White House has recognized this by ordering faster federal reviews for AI infrastructure, but those efforts will stall unless state and local agencies also coordinate to cut red tape. As it stands, a full environmental impact study (if required) still takes around 3 years on average to complete under NEPA, and many projects face additional months or years navigating state environmental laws, zoning boards, and community hearings. We simply don’t have that kind of time if we want to deploy hundreds of sites.
To fix this, governments should expand use of categorical exclusions and programmatic reviews for repeatable project types (for example, a standardized design for an AI data center or a substation) to avoid reinventing the wheel each time. States and municipalities need to align their timelines with federal fast-tracking – perhaps through joint task forces or one-stop permitting offices for strategic industries. The goal should be “YES, if” (identifying conditions to mitigate impacts) rather than “NO, unless” when evaluating these projects. None of this means eliminating environmental or safety oversight – it means doing it smarter and faster. During the Apollo era, NASA and its contractors certainly had oversight, but they also had a deadline that focused the process.
We need a similar mindset now: clear the logjams and expedite decisions, so shovels can hit the ground faster. Every month saved in permitting is a month sooner that new capacity comes online.
3. Double Down on Skilled Trades and Workforce Training.
The construction labor shortage is a huge limiting factor – we can’t build fast without skilled electricians, welders, pipefitters, ironworkers, and technicians. The retirement of the Baby Boomer trades workforce (accelerated by early pandemic retirements) has left a gaping hole. The good news is that Gen Z is showing increased interest in skilled trades. In one 2024 survey, 55% of Gen Z respondents said they are considering a trade career (up from 43% the year prior), and an overwhelming 93% of Gen Z trade school grads believe a skilled trade can offer a more secure living than a college degree. We need to harness that enthusiasm with dramatically expanded training pipelines – more high school vocational programs, apprenticeships, and fast-track certifications in fields like electrical, welding, and manufacturing technology.
Prefab construction can actually help here: it often involves working with advanced tools in factory settings, which can be attractive to young workers who enjoy technology and a controlled environment. It also breaks complex tasks into repeatable processes, making it faster to train new workers on specific module assembly or installation techniques. During WWII, shifting to welding allowed tens of thousands of newcomers (including many women) to be trained quickly to build ships. Today, we should similarly simplify and standardize training for modern construction methods – for example, training a technician to assemble modular electrical panels or HVAC units in a factory setting can be quicker than training a field installer on a whole custom system. Moreover, companies must improve job conditions to retain talent: offer clear career paths, good pay, and modern benefits (many young people seek jobs with purpose and stability, and building transformative infrastructure provides just that).
If we invest in the trades – with the same urgency as we are investing in tech – we can build a new generation of craft professionals to carry this effort forward. The surge in interest is there; now we need to remove barriers (like lack of awareness, cost of training, and outdated stigmas) and welcome Gen Z into the fold to replenish America’s builder ranks.
4. Fix the Supply Chain.
Finally, we must aggressively address bottlenecks in the industrial supply chain for critical equipment. All the funding and crews in the world can’t build on time if key components are back-ordered for years.
A prime example is the electrical transformer shortage currently gripping the grid. Transformers – essential for substations and power distribution at data centers, factories, and new housing – are in critically short supply. The average lead time for a new grid-rated transformer has exploded from a pre-2019 norm of 3–6 months to 12–30 months by 2023. Utility orders that once took 2–4 months are now taking 2–3 years to fulfill due to surging demand and limited production capacity. This is a severe bottleneck: you can’t energize a new facility without transformers, no matter how fast you build. The causes range from pandemic-driven supply hiccups to materials shortages (electrical steel) and an aging manufacturing base. But one fix is straightforward: standardize and bulk-order equipment.
Right now, U.S. utilities and developers specify highly custom designs – incredibly, there are over 80,000 different distribution transformer configurations in use across the country. That fragmentation kills economies of scale. To catch up, industry and government should coordinate on a set of common specifications for the most-needed transformers, switchgears, and other long-lead equipment, and then fund a ramp-up in production. This might involve Defense Production Act measures or guaranteed purchasing agreements to encourage manufacturers to add factory lines.
The same principle applies to things like semiconductor tools, EV battery materials, and HVAC units for data centers – identify the critical components that are in short supply, standardize where possible, and signal consistent high-volume demand so suppliers can confidently invest in expansion. During WWII and Apollo, government acted as a central coordinator to ensure suppliers delivered at the required pace (for instance, Apollo managers famously set up a “parts control board” to track thousands of subcontractors’ progress). We may need a similar approach – a public-private supply chain task force – to unblock the flow of materials. If we don’t fix these kinks, projects will be slowed waiting on a transformer or a custom chip tool, and the whole surge could stall. Volume, consistency, and simplicity in the supply chain will keep the build-out on track.
We Can Scale Under Pressure
America’s history shows that when pushed, we can build the unbuildable – be it thousands of Liberty ships, the Saturn V, or an interstate highway system. In each case, urgency forced innovation and unlikely alliances: industries coordinating with government, new workers being trained en masse, and technologies like prefabrication being deployed boldly. We are at a similar inflection point now. The stakes are high: whichever nation builds the infrastructure for AI and clean energy fastest will lead the next era. The U.S. has made its bet with huge investments and strategic initiatives, but money alone won’t win the race – execution will. The encouraging news is that the spirit of Apollo and Rosie the Riveter is alive today in many quarters. We see construction crews working 24/7 on fab sites, startups pioneering modular building techniques, and young people reconsidering the trades. The challenge is to bring these threads together, at scale and at speed.
We’ve scaled under pressure before; the question is whether we want to do it again now. The modern space race isn’t about reaching the Moon – it’s about rebuilding our capacity here on Earth. If we treat it with the same urgency and unity of purpose, there’s every reason to believe we can succeed.
The clock is ticking and America is building – again.
