Hi-tech air cargo volumes reached 3m tonnes in the first seven months of 2026, overtaking Chinese ecommerce traffic at 2.8m tonnes to become the single largest engine of airfreight growth, according to consultancy Aevean.

The gap is widening fast. Hi-tech air trade grew 22% year on year over the period — nearly four times the 5.8% expansion recorded by the global air cargo market as a whole. The driver, Aevean says, is the worldwide surge in data-centre investment, which is reshaping trade flows and putting fresh pressure on an already tight capacity balance.

What is behind the shift?

Data-centre construction requires vast shipments of servers, networking equipment, semiconductors and related hardware — dense, high-value cargo that moves almost exclusively by air. Each new facility translates into sustained project-cargo demand on specific trade lanes, rather than one-off peaks.

That structural quality separates the hi-tech surge from the ecommerce wave that has dominated airfreight capacity allocation since 2023. Chinese platforms such as Temu and Shein built volumes through daily, high-frequency belly and freighter uptake; data-centre demand arrives in project-sized blocks that forwarders must secure well in advance.

What does it mean for capacity?

The commercial consequences land first on capacity planning. With hi-tech growing at 22% against a market expanding 5.8%, the sector is absorbing a disproportionate share of available lift. For carriers, that means hi-tech traffic now commands priority in allocation decisions — particularly on lanes serving data-centre buildouts in North America, Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia.

For forwarders, the shift narrows the pool of space available for other verticals. Automotive, perishables and general cargo shippers face stiffer competition for belly capacity at exactly the moment e-commerce volumes continue to occupy large freighter commitments. Aevean flags the result explicitly: imbalances across the network are widening, not narrowing.

The imbalance risk cuts both ways. Trade lanes carrying data-centre equipment outbound will tighten fastest, while return legs may stay underutilised unless carriers can triangulate flows — a dynamic that tends to push up one-way rates on the hot legs rather than lift round-trip economics evenly.

Why shippers should watch the ratio

The 3m-versus-2.8m-tonne milestone matters as a signal, not just a statistic. Ecommerce demand has been the industry's capacity story for two years, anchoring freighter deployment and rate floors on transpacific and Asia-Europe lanes. If hi-tech has now moved ahead of it in volume terms — and is growing nearly four times faster — then allocation logic, pricing power and charter demand will follow the data-centre money.

Shippers outside the hi-tech vertical should expect:

• Tighter space on lanes serving major data-centre construction corridors
• Rate pressure during project-driven demand spikes tied to facility buildout schedules
• Greater forwarder emphasis on long-term capacity commitments over spot buying

Carriers, meanwhile, gain a counterweight to ecommerce bargaining power: a second high-volume, time-sensitive vertical that can anchor freighter economics. That diversification may prove welcome if platform-driven demand moderates under de minimis policy changes in destination markets.

With data-centre capital expenditure cycles typically running multi-year, Aevean's numbers suggest the hi-tech share of air cargo will keep climbing — and carriers able to lock in project flows early will set the terms on capacity for everyone else.