LucidLink CEO Peter Thompson reckons that an AI data center boom is exposing a largely overlooked bottleneck inside AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction) firms: how project teams access, manage and collaborate on the massive files behind these builds. We hqd an opportunity to quiz him about this.
Blocks and Files: Is there a data center construction boom? What is happening? Why now?
Peter Thompson: There is absolutely a data center construction boom underway, and AI is one of the primary forces driving it. Every new AI model, enterprise deployment, and inference workload ultimately depends on physical infrastructure somewhere, which is why we’re seeing investors, hyperscalers, and developers racing to expand capacity.
We’re also seeing unprecedented capital movement into the sector. Recent news around Coatue launching a venture focused on acquiring land for AI data centers is one example of how aggressively investment is flowing into infrastructure development as companies compete to secure the next generation of AI compute.
What makes this moment different is the speed and urgency. AI has dramatically accelerated expectations around deployment timelines, and that pressure is flowing downstream into the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. These projects now involve massive design datasets, site imagery, drone footage, digital twins, and continuous iteration across globally distributed engineering teams, yet many firms are still operating on workflow designed for a far more centralized era. site imagery, drone footage, digital twins, and continuous iteration across globally distributed engineering teams, yet many firms are still operating on workflow designed for a far more centralized era.
That disconnect is creating real operational risk. Large BIM models, site imagery, and continuously iterated design files need to move between globally distributed teams at a pace legacy infrastructure was never designed to support. LucidLink was built for exactly this environment — a cloud-native filespace that gives distributed AEC teams instant, simultaneous access to the same project data, without the friction of VPNs, sync delays, or file transfers.
Blocks and Files: What makes data center construction any different from any other large construction project for AEC companies?
Peter Thompson: Data center construction differs from large-scale construction projects because it combines the complexity of critical infrastructure with the speed, scale and operational demands of the technology industry. For AEC firms, that creates an entirely different level of pressure around coordination, delivery and execution. Instead of operating on traditional multi-year construction timelines, many teams are now expected to iterate, coordinate, and deliver at a pace that increasingly resembles enterprise technology deployment cycles.
These projects involve highly specialized engineering disciplines, massive building information modeling (BIM) and computer-aided design (CAD) models, delivery schedules that leave almost no margin for error, and continuous coordination between architects, engineers, contractors, consultants, and owners. Unlike many conventional projects, teams are often working across globally distributed environments with constant design iteration happening in parallel.
At the same time, deployment timelines are tightening as AI infrastructure is increasingly being treated like strategic industrial infrastructure. Access to land, power, networking, storage, and compute capacity has become a major competitive constraint, which is putting enormous pressure on organizations to move faster while maintaining precision and reliability.
Blocks and Files: Are data center delivery time scales compressing the time available for AEC firms to complete their internal workflows?
Peter Thompson: Yes. And the firms feeling it most are those still routing large Revit, CAD, and BIM files through VPNs, network drives, or sync platforms built for a more centralized era.
The impact is measurable. EVS Engineering reduced file access times by 90 percent after moving to LucidLink, recapturing more than 200 billable hours per month. Torti Gallas + Partners, which had consolidated seven network drives into a single filespace, can now open and save Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D files in seconds across both U.S. and international offices.
These aren’t IT improvements. They’re delivery improvements. When engineers aren’t waiting on file access or reconciling versions, that time goes directly back into design and coordination. On a compressed data center timeline, that’s a meaningful operational advantage.
Blocks and Files: Can you characterize an AEC firm’s workflow for a datacenter build? Is it all based in one large office? Is a project ecosystem of partners involved?
Peter Thompson: Modern data center construction workflows are highly distributed. It’s rarely a single centralized office managing a project end-to-end anymore. Today’s projects typically involve a broad ecosystem of stakeholders, including architects, structural engineers, MEP teams, contractors, consultants, owners, and specialty partners, all contributing to the same project environment from different locations and often across multiple time zones. Some teams are working from corporate offices, others remotely, and many directly from active job sites.
At the center of these workflows are extremely large shared BIM and CAD datasets that must be continuously accessed, updated, and coordinated across disciplines.
Blocks and Files: Can an internal IT infrastructure based on VPNs, network drives, sync platforms and local storage support the distributed workflows needed?
Peter Thompson: It can support parts of the workflow, but not efficiently at the scale and speed the industry now requires. Most of those systems were designed for a more centralized operating model, where teams, files and infrastructure were located relatively close together rather than distributed across offices, job sites, remote environments, and external partners.
That’s no longer how modern AEC firms operate. Today’s workflows depend on globally distributed collaboration around massive Revit, CAD, BIM, and 3D datasets that need to be continuously accessed, updated, and coordinated in real time. When those workflows rely on VPNs, network drives, sync platforms, and local storage, teams often spend too much time waiting on file access, downloading large datasets, reconciling versions, or working around infrastructure limitations. The result is operational friction that creates delays, duplicate files, version confusion, and coordination gaps at a time when project delivery timelines are only getting tighter.
The core limitation is architectural. Most legacy systems were built on the assumption that files need to be moved before work can happen. For a team in Phoenix waiting on a Revit model owned by a team in New York, that assumption has a real cost — in time, in version confusion, and in project risk. Cloud-native filespace eliminates the move. The file stays in one place, and every team accesses it directly.
Blocks and Files: Are you saying that faster digital co-ordination is needed to share access to Revit, CAD, BIM and 3D files? What are the benefits?
Peter Thompson: The real need isn’t faster file sharing — it’s faster coordination around the same live project data. In AEC workflows, files are the working model, the system of record, and the coordination layer between disciplines. Slow or fragmented access doesn’t just create frustration; it creates delayed decisions, duplicated work, and version uncertainty — all of which carry real cost on a tight delivery schedule.
The benefit of a modern digital coordination layer is that distributed teams can work from the same source of truth, regardless of location. That means less time spent on downloading, syncing or transferring files, and more time focused directly on designing, engineering, and project delivery.
We’re already seeing measurable operational gains from firms making this transition. Torti Gallas + Partners unified seven network drives and more than a dozen silos with LucidLink, enabling teams to open and save Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D files in seconds while improving collaboration across both U.S. and international offices.
Similiarily, EVS Engineering reduced file access times by 90%, recapturing more than 200 billable hours per month and avoiding $80,000 in planned SAN upgrades. We’ve also seen firms like Widseth modernize collaboration across 12 offices, reduce storage costs by 25%, lower operational risk, and deliver local-like performance for distributed CAD and BIM teams without relying on fragile VPN workflows.
Blocks and Files: What’s involved if an AEC business wants to move from VPNs, network drives, sync platforms and local storage to a faster digital co-ordination scheme?
Peter Thompson: File infrastructure has become a core part of how modern project teams coordinate, deliver, and compete. The firms recognizing this are approaching the transition practically: identify the workflows creating the most operational strain — typically around large Revit, CAD, BIM, and Civil 3D datasets shared across offices, partners, and job sites — and move those workflows to a shared cloud-native filespace first.
From there, the goal is to move toward a shared cloud-native filespace where project data remains centralized, current, and instantly accessible through the applications teams already use. For architects and engineers, the experience should feel familiar, but the underlying operating model changes significantly. Instead of constantly moving, syncing, or duplicating files between systems, teams begin working directly from the same live project data regardless of location.
That shift delivers the most operational benefits. It reduces delays tied to file transfers and version reconciliation, simplifies collaboration across distributed teams, and improves consistency throughout the project lifecycle. It also creates a stronger foundation for increasingly data-intensive and AI-assisted workflows that depend on immediate access to large shared datasets. The firms adapting most successfully are recognizing that file infrastructure is no longer just an IT function. It has become a core part of how modern project teams coordinate, collaborate, and deliver work at scale in an increasingly distributed and cloud-first environment.
