Oracle’s Director of Construction Says Building Data Centers is Like Building Cities

Building AI infrastructure at gigawatt scale means "developing city-sized machines,'" says Craig Deering, senior construction manager at Oracle. 

Drawing on decades of experience — from dismantling AT&T and building the Baby Bells to leading cloud and now AI data center projects — Deering tells Cool Vector: "The challenges of developing a city-sized machine have been known for at least a century. We just need to realize that we're building at that scale."

Deering shares his outlook on the economics of AI compute, the human toll of building at unprecedented speed, and why he remains bullish on AI's impact on jobs despite decades spent watching technology reshape his industry.

Key Takeaways:

• Job sites that once had 1,200 workers now have 6,000 to 8,000, split across multiple companies — a human resource challenge on a scale Deering compares to building the Panama Canal or Gilded Age company towns like Hershey, Pennsylvania • Driving down the incremental cost of AI token production is the industry's central equation, tying directly into Jevon's paradox: as compute gets cheaper, demand explodes • Structural job displacement is real, but Deering argues history — from hand-drafting to CAD to BIM — shows technology ultimately expands opportunity rather than eliminating it

Access the full transcript and a searchable archive at the Cool Vector Substack.

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