It is pretty clear – we are living in the data age and for that we need big, beefy infrastructure that needs equally big and beefy homes — aka data centers. From Apple (s AMZN) to Amazon (s AAPL), everyone is on a data center building binge. Today, thanks to Sean Gourley I learned that the Utah-based NSA Data Center and the Building 2 (second phase) of Facebook’s Prineville, Oregon data center were two of the five largest construction projects in the United States during 2011, according to Construction.com (see PDF). The NSA Data Center is going to cost $1.1 billion and Facebook’s project is going to cost $200 million, according to the website that sources data from McGraw-Hill Dodge Analytics.

We’ll examine the subject of big data more in depth at Structure:Date in New York City on March 21 and 22.