Kaufman & Company has announced BUILD 2030, a national development initiative that integrates its housing, real estate, construction, technology and AI infrastructure capabilities under a single investment and development strategy. The move signals a significant shift in how large-scale developers may approach the next infrastructure cycle, one that treats housing and computing infrastructure as interconnected rather than separate asset classes.
The initiative is predicated on the idea that America's future infrastructure needs will be defined not only by traditional projects like roads and bridges but also by two critical shortages: places for people to live and computing capacity to support an AI-driven economy. Kaufman & Company intends to address both simultaneously. "Everyone is talking about the AI infrastructure boom, but infrastructure cannot only be about machines. If we're going to build infrastructure for AI, we should be equally serious about building infrastructure for people," said Daniel Kaufman, Founder and Principal of Kaufman & Company.
BUILD 2030 will coordinate projects and investment across the Kaufman platform, which includes operating companies in residential development, build-to-rent, workforce and affordable housing, custom housing, commercial and hospitality development, AI infrastructure, real estate advisory and venture capital. The strategy leverages more than 25 years of development experience, representing over $2 billion in project value and more than 10,000 housing units developed.
Central to the initiative is what Kaufman calls "infrastructure convergence." Housing requires land, power, transportation, entitlement expertise, construction capacity and capital. AI infrastructure requires many of the same inputs. Kaufman believes developers who understand both physical and digital infrastructure will have a significant advantage over the next decade. "The real estate industry still tends to put everything into separate boxes: multifamily, build-to-rent, affordable housing, data centers, technology. We don't see it that way. We see land, infrastructure, housing, technology and capital increasingly colliding. BUILD 2030 is our response to that," Kaufman added.
The initiative also emphasizes community impact. When evaluating future AI infrastructure locations, Kaufman & Company plans to explore opportunities where infrastructure investment can support broader economic development, including workforce housing, community improvements and local employment. "We don't want to be the developer that arrives in a community, consumes power and leaves behind a box. The better model is to ask what else our investment can unlock for the people who already live there," Kaufman said.
Kaufman & Company's existing platform includes residential and mixed-use development, workforce and affordable housing, build-to-rent communities, hospitality, AI infrastructure and a venture portfolio developing technology for the real estate industry. BUILD 2030 will serve as the connective strategy across these businesses as the company evaluates its next generation of projects and partnerships. "We've spent 25 years building real estate. The next 25 will be about building the infrastructure around it," Kaufman concluded.
The announcement matters because it challenges the conventional separation between housing and technology infrastructure at a time when both are in acute demand. By aligning capital, land and expertise across sectors, Kaufman & Company aims to create a replicable model that could influence how other developers and investors approach the convergence of physical and digital infrastructure. As AI continues to reshape the economy, the ability to deliver integrated solutions may become a competitive necessity, and BUILD 2030 positions Kaufman & Company at the forefront of that trend.
