American Gridwork Partners today announced it has acquired three additional infrastructure businesses, significantly expanding its operating footprint across the Southeast and Ohio Valley.

The three newly acquired businesses are Lark Electric, an Owensboro, Kentucky-based industrial and commercial electrical contractor founded in 1963 that expanded its regional presence through the acquisition of two other regional electrical companies; Group Electric, a Nashville-based commercial and industrial electrical contractor with more than 30 years of experience; and a national fiber and cabling business serving military, federal and other mission-critical customers, which American Gridwork Partners expects to formally announce separately in the coming weeks.

The three businesses will continue to operate under their existing names and leadership teams, with each gaining access to capital, resources and complementary capabilities across the American Gridwork Partners platform.

The new businesses join PMT Site, acquired by American Gridwork Partners in 2025. PMT Site is a Nashville-based civil and underground infrastructure contractor focused on the foundational work required to repair, replace, expand and modernize America’s aging power and water grids. The business performs site preparation, underground utility, power and water infrastructure work supporting grid modernization, hyperscale AI data center infrastructure, EV infrastructure, industrial facilities and other large-scale projects.

With the addition of the three new businesses, American Gridwork Partners’ leadership now believes it has assembled a complete physical infrastructure platform built to support the next industrial revolution.

“We are very proud to welcome these businesses to the American Gridwork Partners platform,” said Benjamin Krall, Founder and President of American Gridwork Partners. “We are in the early stages of a new industrial revolution, and the scale of the physical infrastructure required is extraordinary. You have to go back to the railroads or the fiber backbone of the internet to find infrastructure investment on a comparable scale. Roughly $800 billion is expected to be invested in the United States this year in infrastructure and compute capacity related to AI alone, with that number expected to reach approximately $1.4 trillion next year. But none of that investment works without the physical systems underneath it. Our strategy is to back the businesses and skilled workforce that build and modernize the power, water, electrical, fiber and other physical systems that all of that investment depends on.”

While AI infrastructure has become one of the most visible focal points of the current infrastructure cycle, American Gridwork Partners believes the AI buildout is only one part of a much broader transformation. Through the Lark partnership, PMT has recently expanded into Kentucky, where it has mobilized on site for its first hyperscale AI data center infrastructure build-out contracts.

Grant Stark, CEO of American Gridwork Partners, noted: “AI is an enormous accelerant, but it is not the only force driving this investment cycle. We built this platform around the thesis that several major forces are reshaping America’s physical infrastructure at the same time — population growth, climate change, electrification demand, the reshoring of American manufacturing and the increasing automation of industrial facilities. Taken together, these forces are creating an enormous investment cycle across America’s physical economy. Power and water grids will need to be modernized, electrical capacity expanded, existing buildings and industrial facilities upgraded, factories prepared for robotics and automation, military and federal facilities enhanced, and behind-the-meter generation and storage deployed as businesses seek greater resilience and control over their mission-critical infrastructure.”

For the leaders of the businesses within the platform, the combination creates an opportunity to pursue larger and more complex infrastructure projects while allowing each business to remain focused on the work it does best.

“Being part of a complete platform gives us the ability to address more of the major service layers required for what is a once-in-a-generation industrial rebuild,” said Phil Terhaar, Founder of PMT Site. “PMT can remain focused on the civil, underground, power and water infrastructure we know while working alongside businesses with complementary electrical, fiber and industrial capabilities. It puts us in a position to follow our customers into larger and more complex infrastructure opportunities that require trusted partners at scale.”

The scale of investment taking place across America’s physical economy is also creating enormous demand for skilled field labor. Electricians, technicians and other skilled trades will be essential to increasing electrical capacity, modernizing existing facilities, connecting increasingly automated industrial environments and maintaining the systems required to support the country’s next generation of industrial growth.

“We think one of the biggest constraints on America’s next industrial buildout is going to be people,” said Krall. “The country is going to need approximately 300,000 additional electricians over the next decade just to keep up with the power infrastructure required for compute, data centers and the broader electrification of the economy. You can spend hundreds of billions of dollars building AI infrastructure, but ultimately somebody still has to install the power, connect the equipment and keep those systems running. Electricians and technicians are going to be at the center of that buildout, and we want to be investing directly into that workforce and the businesses that employ them.”

With the new partnerships, American Gridwork Partners now operates across Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Indiana and Ohio, giving the platform a growing presence across the Southeast and Ohio Valley. Expansion into Florida and other Southern markets is expected over the next few months.

“We believe the growth across these markets extends far beyond data centers,” said Stark. “Population growth, available land, industrial investment and rapidly rising electricity demand are attracting manufacturing, food production, logistics, automotive, compute and other power-intensive industries. Those businesses need infrastructure and skilled labor, and our companies have been working in these markets for decades.”

Beyond where the platform is expanding, the nature of the infrastructure opportunity is also changing. Automation and intelligent machines are beginning to reshape the physical economy and the infrastructure required to support it.

American Gridwork Partners believes the next industrial revolution will be driven in part by AI moving beyond software and into the physical world, automating multi-trillion-dollar industries including food production, mining and manufacturing. As part of these partnerships, and off the back of Lark Electric’s existing industrial automation and service offerings, American Gridwork Partners is investing in the development of a dedicated Industrial Automation & Physical AI division focused on the electrical, connectivity, controls and technology infrastructure required to deploy robotics, autonomous systems and increasingly intelligent equipment inside existing industrial facilities.

Ross Hyland said: “Lark already has a strong position in the industrial maintenance market across the region and has spent decades working inside factories, food processing plants and industrial facilities that are now required to modernize. A tremendous amount of the opportunity exists inside existing infrastructure. As artificial intelligence matures beyond software and into the physical economy, robotics, autonomous equipment, machine vision and increasingly intelligent systems are moving into these same environments. Those facilities will require significantly more electrical capacity, controls, connectivity and supporting infrastructure as they prepare for the next generation of manufacturing and automation.”

American Gridwork Partners plans to continue welcoming complementary infrastructure businesses throughout the Southeast and Ohio Valley as it expands its footprint across the physical systems and skilled workforce required to support America’s next generation of industrial growth.

ABOUT AMERICAN GRIDWORK PARTNERS

Founded in 2024 and based in Nashville, with offices in New York City, American Gridwork Partners is an infrastructure investment platform acquiring and growing established businesses serving America’s physical economy. Backed by strategic, industrial-focused family offices throughout the United States and Europe, the platform invests across power and water infrastructure, electrical, civil construction, fiber and cabling, mission-critical infrastructure and industrial automation. American Gridwork Partners is focused on building a durable network of specialized infrastructure businesses positioned to benefit from the long-term investment required to modernize America’s infrastructure and support the next industrial revolution. Learn more at americangridwork.com.

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