Commercial Observer has published a profile of Jeevan Kalanithi, CEO of OpenSpace, focused on the company’s role in the global data center construction boom. The piece highlights OpenSpace’s scale: over 1,000 data center projects completed across the US, Europe, the Middle East, Canada, Australia, and Singapore, with more than 100,000 construction projects documented on the platform globally. Kalanithi argues that AI has entered a physical phase and that visual intelligence is uniquely suited to managing the risk and complexity of today’s hyperscale builds.
The data center boom has created an acute demand problem: projects that cannot be late, at price tags that make delays catastrophic. Kalanithi cites a specific example of a contractor facing $500 million in liquidated damages for a single data center delay, a figure that puts OpenSpace’s value proposition into sharp relief. When the cost of a scheduling failure runs into nine figures, accurate site visibility stops being optional. OpenSpace Track, the platform’s progress tracking system, pulls data from 360 degree cameras and mobile phones and turns it into schedule visibility that owners can act on immediately. For data center builders working against unforgiving timelines, that shift from documentation to decision support is exactly what the market demands right now.
The Commercial Observer interview positions OpenSpace at the center of two trends reshaping construction: the global AI infrastructure buildout and the growing labor productivity gap. Kalanithi’s observation that the mismatch between available labor and construction demand will not resolve quickly is a signal that technology has to carry more of the load. OpenSpace is built to do that without adding friction to the field. The platform’s three AI layers, covering spatial positioning, human insight, and agentic workflows, give data center teams the tools to operate at a scale and speed that older documentation methods simply cannot match. As the global buildout continues, the visual intelligence approach OpenSpace has pioneered is becoming the standard for managing large, complex projects.
By: Philip Russo
