Aug 18, 26
The Data Center Boom Is Creating More Freight Than You Might Think
This article is based on reporting originally published by FreightWaves.
If you only looked at some of the traditional freight indexes right now, you might think demand is still struggling. But there's another side of the market that's becoming harder to ignore. Across the country, companies are pouring money into data centers and AI infrastructure, and building those facilities requires an enormous amount of equipment and materials. All of that has to get there somehow, and a lot of it eventually ends up on a truck.
That's the argument Dr. Jason Miller makes in a recent FreightWaves discussion about what's really happening with freight demand. The Cass Freight Index showed shipments down roughly 4.5% year over year in July, but Miller believes that number isn't capturing some of the industrial freight currently moving through the economy. His estimate puts overall freight volumes about 1% to 1.5% above last year's levels. That's not explosive growth, but it's a very different picture from one that simply says freight is declining.
Data centers are a big reason why. Air freight imports are up 17% year over year, according to the report, with computers, GPUs, and electrical equipment coming into the country and then moving by expedited truck to data center projects. And that's only one piece of it. These facilities also require steel, switchgear, generators, electrical systems, cooling equipment, construction machinery, and plenty of other heavy materials that have to move from manufacturers and suppliers to job sites across the country.
For truckers, that's where this story gets interesting. A data center may sound like a technology story, but building one looks a lot more like a massive industrial construction project. It creates freight for dry vans, flatbeds, expedited carriers, heavy equipment haulers, and potentially plenty of regional operations supporting the project once construction gets underway. Heavy equipment manufacturers including Caterpillar, Eaton, and Cummins have also reported higher volumes this year, another signal that industrial activity may be stronger than the headline freight numbers suggest.
The capacity side of the market adds another layer. FreightWaves reports that tender rejections have settled around 13%, while long-distance dry van employment has only recovered modestly from its February low. Miller doesn't expect a major wave of new carrier capacity until around mid-2027, which means stronger freight demand could be meeting a market that still doesn't have a huge amount of extra capacity waiting on the sidelines.
That doesn't mean every trucker is suddenly going to start hauling GPUs to a data center. Freight markets don't work that way. But when billions of dollars are being invested in infrastructure that requires steel, machinery, electronics, generators, construction materials, and countless other products, the impact spreads far beyond the companies actually building the facilities. More industrial activity creates more movement throughout the supply chain, and eventually some of that freight finds its way onto lanes that may have nothing obvious to do with AI.
Sometimes the headline numbers don't tell the whole story. Freight demand may not be booming across every sector, but the data center buildout shows how new industries can quietly create significant opportunities for transportation. For truckers watching rates, capacity, and where the next pockets of demand might come from, it may be worth paying attention to what's being built—not just what's showing up in the traditional freight indexes.
The real question now is—
are you already seeing more freight connected to data centers, construction, or industrial projects in the lanes you run?
