Infrastructure is Affordability: Investing in Systems that Shape Daily Life

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This OpEd was originally published in S.C. Media.

February 17, 2026

Author: Cory Simpson, CEO, ICIT

Affordability is the lived experience of daily life. It is the practical sense that a household can count on operational essential services, predictable costs, and stable and sustained systems. Reliable energy, accessible transportation, clean water, resilient healthcare, and connectivity that support work, education, and community shape this experience.

These outcomes of reliability, accessibility, and resiliency are shaped by infrastructure. When critical systems are modern, resilient, and well-governed, they reduce friction across the economy and create stability for households and communities. Critical infrastructure investment is how affordability is built, sustained, and assured.

This moment matters because the United States is investing in infrastructure at a scale that directly shapes both the nation's communities and the overarching economy. Public and private capital are flowing into the foundational systems that underpin daily life, creating an opportunity to strengthen communities, improve affordability, and build durable capacity for the future. How that investment is aligned and governed will determine its long-term impact.

An unprecedented moment of infrastructure investment

The world is experiencing a period of stress marked by pressure on democratic systems, evolving global institutions, and increased competition and conflict. These conditions form the context in which national priorities are set and resources are allocated.

Within that context, the United States is undertaking a historic effort to upgrade and modernize critical systems that support daily life, including energy, water, transportation, communications, and digital infrastructure.

This initiative reflects a deliberate investment in national capability and long-term resilience. Its scale and scope place it among the most significant infrastructure cycles in American history.

Transitional times often create opportunities to strengthen systems and align them with future needs. Infrastructure investment follows this pattern by directing capital into essential services that households and communities rely on every day.

Today, public investment — led by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — is reinforced by unprecedented levels of private-sector capital, particularly in digital and data-center infrastructure. This critical moment offers a chance to position the combined public and private sector investment with long-term affordability, community resilience, and sustainable growth that will shape the nation's future.

Public and private capital, aligned at scale

The scale of infrastructure investment underway reflects a convergence of public stewardship and private capital directed toward the same foundational systems.

Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the federal government is making the largest sustained public investment in critical infrastructure since the New Deal, targeting energy, water, transportation, and communications systems that support daily life and economic activity. This investment focuses on upgrading aging infrastructure, expanding capacity, and strengthening resilience across communities nationwide.

Concurrently, the private sector is investing at historic levels in physical infrastructure, particularly in the data centers that support the digital economy. Driven by demand and return on investment, this capital is being deployed into the same core systems — power generation and transmission, water supply, transportation infrastructure, and high-capacity communications networks — that are being re-funded by the public sector.

Together, public and private investments are reshaping the country's physical infrastructure in ways that directly affect households, communities, and regional economies.

Infrastructure investment at this degree expands capacity, improves reliability, and lowers long-term costs across essential services. When guided intentionally, it supports affordability by strengthening the systems people rely on every day. The central question is whether infrastructure investment is positioned to advance national priorities while strengthening the communities it serves.

Data centers and foundational infrastructure

Data centers require significant investment in, and sustained utilization of, foundational infrastructure — the systems that provide for people's essential needs, including water, energy, transportation, and communications. These systems sustain daily life, enable economic activity, and support public services across communities of all sizes.

As physical infrastructure, data centers draw heavily on energy generation and transmission, water availability, high-capacity communications networks, and transportation systems needed for construction, operations, and maintenance. Their growth intersects directly with the capacity of the same systems that households, local businesses, healthcare facilities, and schools rely on.

When infrastructure planning harmonizes digital growth with community needs, investment expands capacity in ways that strengthen both. Energy systems become more resilient, water infrastructure more robust, connectivity more widespread, and transportation networks better positioned to support long-term growth.

When requirements are misaligned, infrastructure capacity tightens and enduring community needs remain unmet. Stewardship — grounded in planning, coordination, and shared purpose — determines whether data-center development strengthens or strains foundational infrastructure.

How infrastructure shapes the cost of daily life

The cost of daily life is shaped by the reliability and predictability of the systems people depend on. Dependable energy, efficient transportation, resilient water systems, and robust connectivity support household stability and reduce long-term costs. Infrastructure influences affordability by strengthening system performance and ensuring communities can rely on sustained essential services.

The unprecedented level of infrastructure investment now underway creates an opportunity to deliver these outcomes at scale. Modern, well-coordinated systems support economic participation, enable regional growth, and help communities manage costs as demand evolves. Stable services and predictable expenses shape how households plan, work, and live from month to month.

Delivering affordability in this way requires sustained focus on how infrastructure investment is planned, sequenced, and governed. When critical infrastructure is strengthened with the explicit purpose of supporting people and communities, affordability emerges as a practical outcome of systems that are enduring and reliable.

Aligning public and private investment for lasting impact

Infrastructure investment delivers its greatest value when public priorities and private capital are aligned around shared outcomes. Public investment establishes the foundation by expanding capacity, setting standards, and ensuring essential services serve long-term community needs. Private investment brings scale, speed, and innovation, particularly in systems that support economic growth and technological advancement. Together, they shape the infrastructure people rely on every day.

Alignment is a governing discipline. Energy, water, transportation, and communications systems must be planned and expanded with a clear understanding of how public and private demands intersect over time.

When incentives, timelines, and capacity planning move together, infrastructure investment strengthens communities, supports sustainable economic activity, and reinforces affordability. This cohesion turns individual projects into durable systems and ensures that growth contributes to long-term stability as well as short-term gains.

Building affordability by building well

The United States is investing in the systems that shape daily life at a scale without modern precedent. Decisions made during this investment period will shape affordability, resilience, and opportunity for decades to come.

Infrastructure investment delivers lasting value when it is guided by purpose and aligned with the needs of people and communities. Building well means strengthening capacity, improving reliability, and ensuring that growth supports households as much as markets. When public priorities and private investment move together, infrastructure becomes a durable source of stability and shared benefit.

This moment calls for clarity, coordination, and sustained leadership. By aligning infrastructure investment around foundational needs and intentional governance, the nation can translate investment into enduring community support across the country.

Cory Simpson

Cory Simpson is a national security and cybersecurity executive with more than two decades of experience across government, elite military organizations, and the private sector. He leads DC-based organizations that bridge policy and technology, often advising companies across the tech ecosystem—including competitors—to advance modernization, strengthen security, and serve the American people.

About ICIT

The Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, 501(c)3think tank with the mission of modernizing, securing, and making resilient critical infrastructure that provides for people’s foundational needs. ICIT takes no institutional positions on policy matters. Rather than advocate, ICIT is dedicated to being a resource for the organizations and communities that share our mission. By applying a people-centric lens to critical infrastructure research and decision making, our work ensures that modernization and security investments have a lasting, positive impact on society. Learn more at www.icitech.org.