Kaufman & Company has announced BUILD 2030, a national development initiative that integrates the company’s housing, real estate, construction, technology, and artificial intelligence infrastructure capabilities into a single investment and development strategy. The initiative reflects a bet that the next major U.S. infrastructure cycle will be shaped not only by traditional projects like roads and bridges but also by two critical needs: housing and computing capacity to support an AI-driven economy.
The company argues that these two needs are more connected than they appear. Housing requires land, power, transportation, entitlement expertise, construction capacity, and capital—resources that AI infrastructure also demands. Kaufman calls this overlap “infrastructure convergence.” By coordinating projects across its platform, which includes residential development, build-to-rent communities, workforce and affordable housing, commercial and hospitality development, AI infrastructure, real estate advisory, and venture capital, Kaufman aims to capture value from both sides of that convergence.
“Everyone is talking about the AI infrastructure boom, but infrastructure cannot only be about machines,” said Daniel Kaufman, Founder and Principal of Kaufman & Company. “If we’re going to build infrastructure for AI, we should be equally serious about building infrastructure for people.”
The strategy draws on more than 25 years of development experience across the Kaufman platform, representing over $2 billion in project value and more than 10,000 housing units developed. That track record gives the company a foundation for pursuing projects that blend physical and digital infrastructure—a combination Kaufman believes will define the next decade of real estate development.
“The real estate industry still tends to put everything into separate boxes: multifamily, build-to-rent, affordable housing, data centers, technology,” Kaufman said. “We don’t see it that way. We see land, infrastructure, housing, technology and capital increasingly colliding. BUILD 2030 is our response to that.”
A key element of BUILD 2030 is community impact. As Kaufman evaluates future AI infrastructure locations, it plans to explore opportunities where data center investment can support broader economic development, including workforce housing, community improvements, and local employment. Rather than treating data centers as isolated industrial projects, the company wants to integrate them into community planning.
“We don’t want to be the developer that arrives in a community, consumes power and leaves behind a box,” Kaufman said. “The better model is to ask what else our investment can unlock for the people who already live there.”
The initiative arrives as demand for both housing and AI computing power continues to surge, driven by population growth, migration patterns, and the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence across industries. By positioning itself at the intersection of these trends, Kaufman & Company is signaling that developers who understand both physical and digital infrastructure may hold a competitive advantage in securing land, power, and capital.
BUILD 2030 will serve as the connective strategy across Kaufman’s existing businesses as the company evaluates its next generation of projects and partnerships. More information about the initiative and the company’s platform is available at Kaufman & Company.
“We’ve spent 25 years building real estate. The next 25 will be about building the infrastructure around it,” Kaufman said.
