Who makes cement and aggregates for AI data centers

Concrete is the largest material input to a data center by mass. Foundations, slabs, structural elements and site works consume enormous quantities, and the slab in particular is unusual: it has to carry loads and hold flatness tolerances that ordinary commercial construction does not ask for, because rows of heavy cabinets are rolled across it and stood on it. The supply chain is aggressively local. Ready-mix concrete has a working life measured in tens of minutes once it is batched, so it comes from plants near the site and nothing else can substitute; aggregates are low value and high weight, so haul distance dominates their cost. Cement travels further but is produced in a capital-intensive industry whose plants run near capacity and take years to add. The practical effect is that a large project depends on local batch plant capacity, local aggregate reserves, and the trucks to connect them. When several data centers are built in the same region at once — which is what is happening — those local constraints bind. What to look for is batch plant capacity and haul distance rather than national cement figures, whether the mix design has been qualified for the slab tolerances required, and cement supply specifically, since it is the one input in this part that is not purely local and has periodically been allocated.