CBRE's data-center business tops $700M, still accelerating

CBRE’s Q2 2026 earnings, filed July 29, put a hard number on how much AI-driven construction demand the largest commercial real estate services firm is capturing. Infrastructure services revenue, the line that includes data-center work, grew more than 45% to nearly $1.2 billion, and data-center services alone topped $700 million, up nearly 30% year over year, company executives said on the earnings call. Total revenue rose 15.5% to $11.2 billion, and Core EPS climbed 30% to $1.56, per CBRE’s own release.

Why it matters

CBRE is not a developer with a stake in the AI narrative, it is the intermediary that gets paid across leasing, project management and facilities work regardless of who wins a given site. When its infrastructure-services line, spanning data-center construction and operations contracts, grows more than three times faster than the rest of the company, that is vendor-side confirmation power-and-shell work is still being awarded at an accelerating clip, not just planned. CBRE also said most of its data-center profit now comes from ongoing management and retrofit work rather than one-time land or building sales, evidence the pipeline is shifting toward long-duration contracts construction firms can staff against with confidence. Read against Galaxy Digital’s privately funded substation in McGregor, Texas, the picture holds together: developers are paying up front to skip grid queues, and CBRE’s numbers show the services layer around that work is scaling just as fast.

The numbers

CBRE’s own release confirms $11.2 billion in Q2 revenue, up 15.5% year over year, and Core EPS of $1.56, up 30%. Inside that, infrastructure services revenue rose more than 45% to nearly $1.2 billion, with data-center services accounting for over $700 million of it, up nearly 30%. The release states a narrower “critical infrastructure services” line inside the Building Operations & Experience segment grew 68% year over year, a figure neither outlet printed and one that confirms the data-center-driven growth inside that segment outpaces the broader infrastructure-services number. Global leasing revenue rose 24%, with the U.S. also up 24% led by office and industrial; CBRE separately cited 29% growth in U.S. office leasing, a Q2 record. CBRE raised its full-year 2026 Core EPS guidance to $7.80 to $7.90, from $7.60 to $7.80, implying 23% growth at the midpoint.

What’s next

Watch whether infrastructure services keeps outrunning CBRE’s other segments through the back half of 2026, since it is the cleanest public proxy for how fast power-and-shell contracts are being awarded industry-wide, not merely announced. CBRE’s commentary points to continued double-digit data-center growth as AI capital spending holds up. If that segment cools before the next print, it will signal the awarding pace itself, not just financing or land deals, is starting to slow.