Welcome to the Magical Mystery Tour of the AI age
The massive buildout of AI data centers across the U.S. is creating a secondary economy of support services, such as large-scale catering. Companies like National Jobsite Catering are scaling their operations to feed thousands of construction workers at sites across the country.
Why it matters
It illustrates the vast, often overlooked supply chain and service-sector ecosystem fueled by the multi-trillion dollar AI infrastructure boom.
National Jobsite Catering serves about 1,500 meals on an average day at each of its dozen data center construction sites. Jason Andrew for BI At 5 a.m. in Northern Virginia , chefs are already preparing chicken and chile roja enchiladas, fried shrimp tacos, and big batches of rice and beans to feed thousands of data center construction workers. By late morning, a crew brings the food from the off-site kitchen to a break tent where workers can pick up lunch without leaving the worksite. They don't pay: The Big Tech companies spending billions on AI infrastructure foot the bill. On an average day, National Jobsite Catering serves about 1,500 meals at each of its dozen data center construction sites across Northern Virginia, Texas, Ohio, Louisiana, Nevada, and Georgia, founder Scott Kaplan tells me. The busiest sites serve twice as many.
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