Behind every AI breakthrough, every Netflix binge, and every data-powered business decision is a real, physical structure: the data center. These massive facilities use enormous amounts of power, air, and building materials to keep our digital world running. And at the heart of it all? Stainless steel. From cooling systems to structural supports, stainless steel is the quiet workhorse of modern infrastructure and a material every contractor should know as data center construction continues to boom.
North America is the epicenter of the boom, and the US market for building data center infrastructure is thriving coast to coast. What was a $48 billion market in 2024 is projected to be a $112 billion market by 2030. In fact, a new data center is even planned near Hamlet, North Carolina—right in American Stainless & Supply’s backyard.
For construction contractors across the U.S., it’s no longer a question of if you’ll work on a data center infrastructure project, it’s when. From structural framing to cooling systems, these builds demand durable, high-performance materials, with stainless steel playing a central role.
Understanding where and why stainless steel fits into these projects can give you a serious edge on the job site and in the bidding process.
The Role of Stainless Steel in Data Center Construction
If you’ve ever been in an office building’s server room, multiply that by orders of magnitude until it fills a giant warehouse—that’s, more or less, what a data center is. On a data center campus, though, you’ll also find extensive onsite power supplies such as fuel tanks, backup generators, and electrical substations to provide an uninterrupted flow of power. In addition, data centers have complex cooling systems to handle the massive amounts of heat their hardware produces.
In all these vital pieces of infrastructure, you’ll find stainless steel, and here’s why:
Durability and Strength
Stainless steel is exceptionally durable, providing long-lasting and reliable support for not only the building frame and external structures, but also critical infrastructure within the data center itself. Data centers are a far more physically demanding environment than you might expect them to be if you’ve never built or been in one before, and the high strength of stainless steel meets those demands easily.
Stainless steel works well for load-bearing floor supports and supports for cable trays and power distribution systems, tucking cooling systems and cables out of the way and providing data center personnel with a stable and easily navigable environment with minimal risks of tripping or fall hazards.
Thermal Conductivity
Stainless steel is very good at conducting heat, and in an environment where heat buildup is a very bad thing, that makes stainless steel a very useful material. Without anywhere to go, the heat produced by computer hardware running day in and day out can destroy that hardware. Using stainless steel in server racks and other interior structural elements prevents heat from getting “trapped” anywhere within the structure and helps data center cooling towers do their jobs better.
On top of being thermally conductive, stainless steel holds up to heat and fire very well, which means that in the event of severe overheating or the worst-case scenario of a fire, it will maintain its structural integrity and prevent further damage to critical equipment.
Corrosion Resistance and Hygienic Properties
Using stainless steel in cooling systems takes advantage of the material’s exceptional corrosion resistance, thanks to both its elemental composition and its smooth surfaces. Properly treated and used, stainless steel withstands exposure to moisture very well.
On top of that, these chemical and physical properties make stainless steel very easy to clean. Cleanliness is next to godliness, especially in a data center. Dust, debris, and other contaminants are some of the leading causes of unplanned downtime in data centers of all shapes and sizes, but especially hyperscale data centers (enormous data centers owned by tech giants like Google and Amazon) and colocation data centers (data centers that rent portions of their capacity to a variety of businesses).
Building Sustainable Data Centers With Stainless Steel
There are quite a few sustainability concerns surrounding data centers. If not designed for sustainability, they can guzzle water like nobody’s business and drink local reservoirs dry, and the power infrastructure keeping them online 24/7/365 can produce a sizable carbon footprint. If the data center construction market is going to continue growing, sustainable design—primarily the ability for data centers to minimize their power consumption, carbon emissions, and water wastage—has to be treated as an absolute necessity.
As we’ve looked into, stainless steel’s sustainability bona fides are impressive. It’s an infinitely recyclable material with a long service lifespan and physical properties that make it energy-efficient to both produce and use. Using stainless steel in cooling systems, server racks, and building infrastructure can’t solve every sustainability issue, of course, but it does give all the other sustainability solutions a leg up by providing a sturdy foundation.
Stock Up on Data Center Construction Materials
Look in any data center, and you’ll find stainless steel doing hard work in server racks, elevated flooring systems, and cable management systems; in platforms, supports, and pipe racks for data center cooling towers; in building frames and essential infrastructure across the data center campus. When it’s your job to build these essential systems, you know where you need to turn for the supplies you need.
At American Stainless, we’re excited to see the growth of data centers present new opportunities for construction contractors and companies across America, especially in the Southeast US. With an extensive supply of heavy-duty stainless steel structural shapes sourced from leading domestic and international manufacturers and the ability to drop-ship materials to work sites across the Carolinas as early as the same or next business day, we look forward to helping our neighbors build the digital infrastructure the world demands.