Global Logistics Focus

Special Report

Data center demand offers forwarders value-added services beyond air freight

By Greg Knowler

The massive growth of AI data centers, particularly in the US, is a rapidly expanding value-added business sector for global forwarders and is expected to generate significant air freight volume over the next few years.

While the AI equipment demand competes with e-commerce for air freight capacity out of Asia, handling the fast-growing tech shipments offers better yields and more valuable opportunities for forwarders to add logistics services.

“ Data center logistics is something that is in full swing, with significant building taking place, especially in the United States,” said DHL CEO Tobias Meyer.

“ We have increased our business in two areas, mainly in international transportation along that value chain and inbound to the data center construction side, but also upstream for the staging of material and sequencing at or near the construction sites of those facilities,” Meyer told analysts during a second-quarter earnings call.

According to a report from Synergy Research Group, the total capacity of US data centers will double in the next three years as booming demand drives the aggressive buildout of data centers owned by hyperscale operators.“ Over the next five years, the US will continue to account for well over half of the world’ s operational data center capacity,” John Dinsdale, a chief analyst at Synergy Research Group, said in the report.

24 Journal of Commerce | October 5, 2026 www. joc. com