If his dozen years in the freight business taught Billy Young anything, it’s that easy money attracts fair-weather truckers. Young, the owner-operator of trucking firm 406 Logistics and Dirt, has seen how anyone with a rig can jump in, and just as quickly walk away when the market turns.
Over the last decade, the industry has ridden a rollercoaster of booms and busts. High rates and low barriers to entry continuously lure newcomers into the market, but once capacity overflows, the market cleans house.
Right now, business is booming. Young’s fleet of five trucks is expected to double by early next year, growth for his Montana and Colorado-based operations now fueled by the construction of hundreds of new data centers across the country.
“The trucking industry has not seen anything like what the data centers are demanding ever,” said Young. “Right now — us carriers — we're killing it.”
Young isn’t the only one cashing in. While much of the freight sector has stumbled post-Covid, the data center boom has emerged as a lucrative lifeline for the logistics middlemen powering the US economy. Yet questions remain over whether the current AI buildout can sustain long-term growth.
Still, private equity...
