Contractors fear data centers will soak up steel and copper. What prices and lead times actually show

The owner of two commercial general contracting firms in the Midwest posted the warning in r/Construction and r/Contractor on Oct. 31. He also wrote that his local electrical supplier is nearly out of copper and is splitting what it has between data center jobs and other contractors. Those are one supplier's warnings. Hard Hat Report found no national data confirming copper allocation.

The national numbers are lower but steep. Over the 12 months through September 2026, the producer price index for what goes into new nonresidential projects climbed 11.9%, its biggest gain in four years, according to the Associated General Contractors of America's analysis of Labor Department data released Oct. 15. Steel mill products rose 27.6%, copper and brass mill shapes 30.0% and aluminum mill shapes 25.2%, and AGC ties the metals jump to tariffs of up to 50% imposed in 2025. Copper scrap rose 43.5%, AGC's tables show.

Supply is the harder problem. Contractors told AGC that producers of beams and other structural shapes have order books full through spring 2027, that some buyers were told they would get only a sliver of the beams on their orders, and that other suppliers are refusing new customers. At a Sept. 10 webinar reported by Construction Dive, Skanska supply chain vice president Tom Park said steel had risen 25% in a year and lead times now ran 55 weeks, more than twice what they had been. He blamed demand from data centers and chip plants and said mills and fabricators were working flat out. Lumber escalation was 0% to 3%, he said.

Contractors are swallowing much of the gap. AGC said builders seem to be covering most of the higher costs themselves because demand is weak everywhere except data centers, and the price index for nonresidential electrical contractors' work rose only 5.4% over the same year. AGC's advice is to write a price escalation provision into the contract at signing, for example the ConsensusDocs 200.1 amendment, which lists the affected materials and moves the price up or down with an agreed index.