US economic growth has become far too dependent on the data center boom. That the ‘bubble’ created will burst in the not-too-distant future, many economists have warned.
The major ‘hyperscalers’ such as Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Oracle, are spending hundreds of billions of dollars deploying infrastructure to run a myriad of servers and provide cloud computing, storage and networking on an enormous scale.
‘Phenomenal’ Volumes from Different Origins in Asia
“This is the driver of air trade growth right now; GPUs, (Graphics Processing Units), servers and networking gear, all high-value and time-critical,” said the company’s head of Consulting, Maarten Wormer, underlined during a recent podcast hosted by the Freight Buyers Club, earlier this month.
It contrasts sharply with a 29% drop in EU-bound e-commerce volumes, also in July, as a result of the 27-member economic bloc suspending its de minimis rule and replacing it with a flat-rate customs duty of €3 per item from non-EU countries.
Global air trade grew 5.8% in the first seven months of the year (on the same period in 2025) and the stand-out feature was the performance of the trans-Pacific lane, especially eastbound, from Asia to the US, Wormer noted.
“I think it was up 24% (y-o-y) and that was really due to hyperscaler/data center-related shipments. It represented 107,000 tons of air freight in July alone to the US and effectively translates to 1,000 freighter flights in that month, so about 33 per day. So, it's a phenomenal amount that's coming from different origins in Asia and is really pulling the global air trade growth figure up.”
There are reports that load factors have reached around 90% on Asia-US routes, thanks to buoyant demand for a broad range of goods used in the construction, fitting-out and operation of data centers.
According to a report by IATA, in 2025, more than two-thirds of the value of AI-related trade was carried by air, growing 20% year-on-year.
What’s more, AI-related goods accounted for 53.5% of the total value of air-transported trade, while representing just 7% of its volume—highlighting the segment’s high value density and strategic importance for the industry.
Capacity Squeeze
Airlines experiencing difficulties in obtaining additional cargo capacity has been a recurrent feature of the market over the last couple of years and the data center/AI boom has aggravated the squeeze on space, sometimes at the expense of other verticals.
Some ‘slack’ was created when the Asia-US e-commerce air trade slumped. This has since given way to a rebound, and this trend is likely to be repeated with the downturn in e-commerce volumes between China and Europe.
GRIT, a cloud-based supply chain visibility platform, warned shippers in a Linkedin post that “your air freight is currently losing a seat to a computer chip.” It continued: “The AI boom isn’t just a software revolution: it’s physically reshaping how the world moves goods. Right now, massive demand for GPUs and semiconductor equipment is causing a significant air freight capacity squeeze. With AI-related shipments up 65%, high-value tech is gobbling up premium space, often leaving traditional cargo on the tarmac and driving spot rates through the roof.”
DHL Global Forwarding’s (DGF) EVP Global Air Freight, Henk Venema, said that from the company’s perspective, the market is best characterized by “selective tightness” than by a broad shortage of capacity.
He told AJOT in an interview, “Capacity availability varies considerably by trade lane, with tech-related corridors remaining the most constrained. Customers continue to prioritize reliable access to capacity and operational resilience, particularly for high-value and time-critical shipments.”
Today, demand is increasingly being supported by semiconductors and AI-related hardware which is reflected in the company’s strong growth in ex-Asia volumes, he added.
“In some cases, maintaining project schedules has become more important than transport costs alone, resulting in greater willingness to secure premium transport solutions when necessary.”
Strong Growth Outlook
The data center logistics market was estimated to be worth approximately worth $23 billion in 2025 and is expected to reach at least $35 billion by 2030 with growth spread across the globe.
Europe, India, Australia, Indonesia and the Middle East are actively expanding their infrastructure in addition to the US.
There is also a second, often overlooked aspect: hardware replacement cycles are becoming shorter which means data centers are not one-time construction projects but rather generate recurring requirements for logistics services
