Jacobs Solutions Inc. (J) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the Jacobs Fiscal Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Bert Subin, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and welcome, everyone. Following market close, we issued our earnings announcement, filed our Form 10-Q, and posted a slide presentation on our website, which we'll reference during the call. I would like to refer you to slide two of the presentation for information about our forward-looking statements, non-GAAP financial measures, and operating metrics. Now let's turn to the agenda on slide three. Speaking on today's call will be Jacobs Chair and CEO Bob Pregata and CFO Bank Nathamuni. Bob will begin by providing comments on the business as well as highlights from our third quarter results and a recap of notable awards. Bank will then provide a detailed review of our financial performance, including commentary on end market trends, cash flow, and balance sheet data, as well as our updated outlook. Finally, Bob will provide closing remarks, and then we'll open up the call for questions. With that, I'll turn it over to our Chair and CEO, Bob Regatta.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our third quarter 2026 business performance. We delivered strong results in Q3. I'll quickly highlight a few key takeaways. First, adjusted EPS grew approximately 14% to $1.84, supported by more than 8% adjusted net revenue growth, all organic, and more than 100 basis points of year-on-year margin expansion. Second, INAF posted nearly $2.1 billion in net revenue, a 10% increase year-over-year, and a quarterly record for the segment. And third, our backlog grew 27% to $29 billion, setting another new record with a trailing 12-month book-to-bill of 1.4 times on gross revenue and 1.2 times on net revenue. As we look ahead, we see continued strong underlying business momentum, as reflected by our third consecutive guidance raise for FY26, which Venk will walk through in more detail shortly. Turning to slide four, we provide a detailed overview of the quarter. We are very pleased with our Q3 results as strong operating performance paired with our lower share count drove the sixth straight quarter of double-digit growth in adjusted EPS. Our margin profile continues to trend higher with our business achieving an adjusted EBITDA margin above 15% in Q3, up over 100 basis points year over year and up almost 200 basis points when compared to the same period in 2024. The combination of strong annual margin expansion, high single-digit organic growth, and continued share repurchases enabled by strong free cash flow generation has created a powerful earnings growth algorithm. Further, we are seeing convergence of backlog growth and overall revenue growth, and we are positioned to deliver another strong bookings performance in Q4. Turning to slide five, I'd like to highlight a few notable project awards from the third quarter. In Water and Environmental, Jacobs is selected to provide program management and technical environmental services to the U.S. Navy's Environmental Restoration Program, primarily across the Mid-Atlantic and Puerto Rico. The work involves restoring contaminated sites, including PFAS and munitions-related projects, with the goal of reducing health and environmental risks and returning these sites to beneficial use. It extends our 40-year partnership with the Navy and underscores our leadership in delivering complex, high-impact environmental solutions. This key win, as well as new awards with private sector clients, gives us increased confidence we will see a return to growth in the environmental sector in coming quarters. Also in water and environmental, we were selected to deliver Central Utah Water District's Strawberry High Line Improvement Project, which will modernize roughly 40 miles of aging canal infrastructure through new pipelines, a pump station, a regulating reservoir, and related facilities. By converting a historic open canal into a modern pressurized system, the project will improve long-term water reliability for agricultural and municipal users, while supporting regional growth and enhanced recreation along the corridor. It's part of the district's broader NEBO Regional Water Project, an approximately $1.5 billion program designed to sustain a doubling of the area's population in the coming decades. This also includes the South Utah Valley Regional Water Treatment Plant, where Jacobs is already under contract to lead design and engineering during construction. Shifting to life sciences and advanced manufacturing, Jacobs was awarded a sole source EPCM contract by HUD-8 to deliver Beacon Point, the company's second AI data center campus in the U.S. Located in Texas, the multi-phase campus is designed to support one gigawatt of total capacity. This award is a follow-on to HUD-8's River Bend campus in Louisiana, where Jacobs is also leading program delivery. We'll apply proven design elements from that project and deploy our data center digital twin to simulate critical assets, helping to de-risk commissioning and reduce time to first revenue by accelerating the deployment of AI workloads. Initial energization is targeted for 2027. Winning a repeat sole source contract at this scale reflects the confidence clients place in Jacobs to deliver complex AI infrastructure with speed, safety, and certainty. It also builds on our standing as Engineering News Record's number one data center firm, a sector where we see substantial runway as AI investments increase. And finally, PA is supporting the UK Royal Air Force's Optimize Initiative, enabling RAF leaders to use data-driven insights to further strengthen operational readiness and decision-making in an increasingly complex environment. The work turns data into confident, evidence-led decisions that support the RAF's readiness, and it reinforces our standing as a trusted delivery partner in the defense sector, delivering high-tempo programs that have real operational impact. Now please turn to slide six. Given the growth tailwind we are seeing from AI investments, I wanted to take a moment to quickly highlight our position in the AI infrastructure build-out. We've been serving data center clients since the 1990s and have longstanding relationships with semiconductor manufacturers that span over 50 years. Significant capital is being deployed to build AI data centers, and we have been able to grow our addressable market by expanding our scope of services, which now range from technical advisory and design to digital twins and full program delivery. Further, the AI data center build out is increasing capacity requirements in the semiconductor industry, where we are a leading facility designer, and we are leveraging our capabilities across water, environmental, power, and digital to further expand our market share with both private sector clients and utilities. For context, as of Q3, the direct AI buildout represented 11% of our adjusted net revenue, up approximately 100 basis points from last quarter, and our pipeline of future opportunities continues to grow meaningfully. Now, turn the call over to Venk to review our financial results in further detail.

Thank you, Bob, and good afternoon, everyone. Please turn to slide number seven, where I'll walk through our results for Q3. Gross revenue increased more than 34% year-over-year, and adjusted net revenue, which excludes pass-through revenue, grew by over 8%. Q3 adjusted EBITDA was $367 million, up 17%, with our margin at 15.2%, or 109 basis points higher year-over-year. This resulted in adjusted EPS increasing 14% year-over-year. Consolidated backlog was up more than 27% year-over-year to a record $29 billion, with our trailing 12-month book-to-bill at 1.4 times. Book-to-bill was strong again in Q3, driven by good awards activity across our end markets, with standout performance in the advanced manufacturing, environmental, and transportation sectors. Additionally, on a year-over-year basis, net revenue and gross profit in backlog increased 11% and 14% respectively during Q3. We're demonstrating faster organic growth in the business today, and strong recent awards activity positions us well as we look ahead to fiscal year 27. Regarding our performance by end market in infrastructure and advanced facilities, let's turn to slide number eight. At a high level, we continue to see strong growth rates in life sciences and advanced manufacturing, as well as in critical infrastructure during Q3. Focusing on life sciences and advanced manufacturing, net revenue grew 24% in Q3, our highest growth rate since we began reporting end markets in late 2024. Strong performance in the data center and semiconductor sectors contributed to substantial year-on-year growth, and we anticipate that this trend will continue in Q4. We're seeing high demand for new projects across life sciences and advanced manufacturing, setting us up well for the new fiscal year. Shifting to critical infrastructure, net revenue increased 9% year over year. Critical infrastructure trends remain similar to Q2, with transportation and energy and power activity leading to strong growth versus last year. We continue to expect critical infrastructure to grow in the mid to high single digit range over the medium term. Net revenue growth in our water and environmental end market was a little more than one percent. Net revenue growth for water remains strong and as we indicated last quarter we did continue to face year-over-year headwinds in the environmental sector. On a positive note we're forecasting growth for the water and environmental end market to sequentially improve in Q4 based on good awards activity in the quarter. In summary, strong life sciences and advanced manufacturing performance during Q3 was complemented by good demand across the majority of our sectors. Moving now to slide number nine, I'll provide a brief overview of our segment financials. In Q3, INF operating profit increased 14% year-over-year on 10% net revenue growth. PA Consulting operating profit increased 2% on flattish revenue and operating margin again came in strong at above 22%. Both segments saw only a minor operating profit growth impact from foreign exchange during Focusing on PA, the segment experienced some temporary disruption from the recent change in governmental leadership in the UK, which delayed project start dates. Importantly, we are already seeing a return to normal, and our forecast indicates solid quarter-on-quarter revenue growth in Q4, supported by recent awards activity, new project commencements, as well as performance quarter-to-date. Now, moving on to slide 10, we provide an overview of cash generation and our balance sheet. For Q3, we generated $541 million in adjusted free cash flow, which removes the impact of $110 million in payments related to proceeds for the PA transaction, as we had indicated last quarter. This brings year-to-date adjusted free cash flow to $633 million. dollars. Please note, we will not make adjustments to free cash flow in Q4 and will return to providing guidance for reported free cash flow margin in fiscal year 27. Focusing on capital returns, we remain aggressive buyers of our shares during Q3 to take advantage of the dislocation in our share price. As a result, our total repurchases through Q3 rose to 614 million dollars, which combined with dividends paid, puts us on track to return more than 100% of free cash flow to our shareholders for the second consecutive year. This brings total shared repurchases since the beginning of fiscal year 25 to $1.4 billion, and we see continued runway moving forward, given our strong outlook for free cash flow. Shifting now to the balance sheet, at the end of Q3, our net leverage ratio declined to 1.8 times, achieving our target for net leverage to be below 2.0 times a quarter early, and we still plan to delever to approximately 1.5 times by the end of fiscal year 27. Please turn to slide 11 for our updated fiscal year 26 outlook. We're increasing our fiscal year 26 adjusted net revenue growth range to 9.5% to 10% year-over-year, narrowing our adjusted EBITDA margin range to 14.7% to 14.8%, raising our adjusted EPS range to $7.20 to $7.30, and raising our adjusted free cash flow margin forecast to 8%. Notably, our outlook for fiscal year 26 now implies nearly 19% year-on-year growth in adjusted EPS at the midpoint. As it pertains to Q4, we expect our adjusted EBITDA margin to be approximately 16%, with year-over-year net revenue growth of approximately 14%. Furthermore, we expect our tax rate to be roughly 27.5% and our quarterly free cash flow to be approximately $150 million. Overall, we're very pleased with our year-to-date performance and our Q4 outlook highlights that we expect a strong finish to fiscal year 26. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Bob.

Thank you, Venk. In closing, I'd like to express my gratitude for the trust our clients continue to place in Jacobs and to our more than 47,000 talented employees for their continued commitment to delivering excellence. We're tracking very well heading into the final quarter of the fiscal year with strong Q3 performance enabling us to increase the midpoint of our full-year adjusted EPS outlook for the third consecutive time. Our backlog is at record level, and our pipeline continues to expand, positioning us for profitable growth in FY27 and beyond. Operator, we'll now open the call for questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. And to withdraw your question, press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question for optimum sound quality. And if muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Andy Kaplowitz with Citigroup. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone. Hi, Andy. Robert Banks. So, backlog growth has obviously been accelerating over the last several quarters. I think you mentioned 1.2 times, booked to go on net revenue, as you said. So, I know it's early to talk about FY27, but your exit rate in Q4 will be in a double digit at 14%. So, does that mean it's possible to grow FY27 net revenue as fast or faster than FY26, or at least at this point, do you have much higher visibility than usual toward that normal algorithm of mid to high single digit growth that you have?

Yeah, I'll take the question. Yeah. So, you know, obviously, as you pointed out, good solid growth in Q4 that we're projecting and good growth for the full year. You know, certainly our backlog is in a really good position. I think, you know, we will defer specifics on the growth algorithm for fiscal 20 on the next call. But suffice it to say that, you know, looking at our current backdrop position, we feel pretty good about growth. at least in line with the long-term average that we put out there.

Okay, that's helpful. And then, Bob, you had comments about sort of the data center business and life sciences and advanced manufacturing in general. I mean, it does keep increasing as a percentage of NSR. So maybe how are we thinking about that sector now versus, you know, your investor day a year and a half ago, whatever it was. You know, can you grow that business sort of double digits for the foreseeable future, you know, based on sort of what you see and maybe the shared gains that you've had?

Yeah, Andy, we absolutely can. It's a growth engine right now that is deep and broad for us with the entirety of that ecosystem. And if we look all the way from kind of what we're doing in the high bandwidth memory chips, the water and power requirements that are feeding the data center and then the complexity that's going into the data center, our share is increasing.

And in the clients that we're working for have got long pipelines ahead so uh the answer is absolutely yes very nice thanks guys thank you your next question comes from the line of sangeeta jane with key bank your line is open please go ahead great thank you so much for taking my questions um one i want to ask on water and environment like it seems like last quarter you had a lot of good wins a couple of them bob you highlighted in your prepared remarks um how should we think about the scope of some of those bookings and the period over which they're going to burn i'm trying

to figure out how we should think about water and environmental growth going forward yeah so sangeeta the the winds that we had in the quarter um will start to burn in q4 so kind of that inflection point that we've always been telegraphing that would come at the end of the year It's right in front of us. So you'll see sequential growth in the quarter. And then going into FY27, we're positioned extremely well to be on those growth rates that we highlighted during the investor day of that mid to high single digit growth for water and environmental. And the water sector continues to be high single digit growth for us. And in the pipeline, as well as the forward outlook is very bright.

So we're excited about the sector. got it and then maybe one for wank um your sgna's percent of sales in 3q was lower than it has been in a very long time and i'm wondering if there was anything one time or if it's just a function of what you've been saying that you're going to grow your your opex at a slower pace than your revenue and that's starting to show maybe yeah that's exactly right um you know as our revenues is continue to accelerate over the last several quarters, and based on the guidance we've provided, we made a commitment to spend at less than the revenue growth rate, and that's exactly what we're seeing in terms of operating leverage,

and you'll see more of that coming through in Q4 as well.

Got it. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Stephen Fisher with UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks.

Good afternoon. a nice uptick there in the book to bill in the quarter.

So as you guys look at your pipeline, how should we think about that book to bill from here? It seems like the growth is poised to accelerate. So with that faster burn, how sustainable do you think, say 1.5 times or better is as you accelerate? And how lumpy do you think it's going to be from here?

Yeah, Steve, I think if you look at the gross revenue book to bill versus the net revenue booked bill, let me kind of segregate those. The lumpiness in the gross revenue booked a bill, where we would have a 1.5, a 1.6, you probably remember last year, we had a 1.7 for a quarter. You know, that's going to come up and down as some of these larger full program delivery jobs are booked. But the 1.1 to 1.3-ish net revenue growth, pretty consistent.

Okay, sounds good. And then wondering if, Bob, you could give us an update on two things. One, Middle East activity in general, how you're managing that over there, and just international overall. Is the pace of that business picking up? You know, clearly you've had some good wins. Just kind of curious of how those two things are developing.

Yeah, so, Steve, maybe I'll take the second part first and then hone in on the Middle East. internationally, we've done well. We're kind of in that 9% growth rate internationally. And that is probably more skewed a little bit to Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. The Middle East is stable, and we've continued to do well there. But I'd say the European area is, again, stable mid single digits um so overall internationally you know we uh we see some some some continued pipeline growth as well as um stability as we look forward to the q4 as well as into going into next year thank you your next question comes from the line of jamie cook with truest your line is open please go ahead hi uh congrats on a nice quarter um i guess just two questions.

One, Venk, there's still, you know, we're, you know, one quarter left. There still implies a significant ramp, you know, Q3 to Q4, which makes sense, like given the top line growth of 14 percent you're talking about. But I guess why so much variability to 10 cents around the fourth quarter? What would be the drivers behind, you know, the low end versus the high end of the guide? And then my second question, I guess, you know, sort of what struck me about the quarter, with the margin uplift, then I guess the implied 15% and then implied margins going to 16% in the fourth quarter. As I think about the trajectory for 2027, we're thinking about a world where organic growth is accelerating and margins can expand. Is it fair to say more of the margin uplift would come from IANF versus PA Consulting or any comments you want to make around that? Thank you.

Yeah. First of all, thank you for your comments, Jamie. No, obviously, really good quarter. So I'll split the response into two halves, right? One is just focused on the net revenue growth, as well as the margin expansion. So on the net revenue growth, you know, we guided to about 14% for the quarter. As you know, we have an extra week in the Q4. So that in and of itself, you know, accounts for about, call it 67%. So when you normalize it, you know, we are growing at 8% for the quarter. So given the fact that we grew 7.8% or 8.3% in Q3, we see good line of sight to be able to grow the 14% for Q4. That's number one. It's driven by the fact that the program ramps that we talked about in Q3 and in Q2, they are now coming into full fruition in Q4, which drives up utilization, and we have good visibility into that. So that's from a revenue perspective. When you look at it from a margin perspective, we've done a pretty good job of increasing our margins sequentially over the last three quarters as well as year on year. As you recall, you know, I think we started the year at 13.4, we went to 14.1, and then this quarter we're at 15.2, so 110 basis points of sequential growth, as well as good year-on-year growth, and what we're guiding for in Q4 is 16%, so really good line of sight to be able to achieve that, you know, with the increased realization that we talked about, as well as increased use of global delivery, so a really good visibility into achieving those targets for both revenue as well as EBITDA margin.

And Jamie, I think on the question that you had with regards to 27 and where we see that continued margin expansion, I'd say it's pretty balanced that we would continue to get it from both INAF as well as PA Consulting, because we're right in the middle of the cost synergies that we're working on with PA Consulting. Just as a reminder, PA Consulting does have the highest margins in that space.

So we're continuing to grow on a base that's really high. thank you your next question comes from the line of andrew whitman with baird your line is open please go ahead yeah great uh thanks for taking my question so i just um i think i heard a comment that you said in the fourth quarter you're going to report free cash flow without any adjustments and that's great is there a similar comment that you can make like that um related to your income statement uh i know that obviously over a year ago you announced some um actions for the for the for the iaf segment but now rob you just mentioned that you're kind of integrating pa so um what should uh the investment community expect in terms of um income statement uh adjustments between gap and non-gap uh and not just maybe for 4q but how long uh are you going to continue to recognize something there and when can those two converge thanks yeah and i'll take that question i would say, obviously, you've seen with this Q3 print, the gap between gap and non-gap EPS was primarily driven by just a tax item.

But overall, you've seen a pretty significant convergence between our gap and non-gap numbers, except for the PA acquisition. So from that standpoint, we feel pretty good about the quality of the earnings, and we will continue to make additional progress in Q4 and beyond. You'll see it from both the P&L side as well as in the free cash flow side. And, you know, we've already taken M&A off the table. So, you know, you don't have to expect a lot of these variances between gap and non-gap going forward. So our view is that, you know, with Q4, as we stated on the Q3 call, the fact that there was a tax delta because of how the PA compensation expenses was treated. So that'll have an impact on Q4 because it's for the full fiscal year. but going forward, that gap will reduce substantially and will be more in line with our non-GAAP and GAAP tax rates.

Got it. I guess just on my follow-up then, I wanted to dig in on the environmental side. Obviously, it sounds like you had some wins here in 3Q that are going to help that growth rate improve in 4Q. I just was hoping you'd be a little bit more specific. Is there a general context to something? Is this state and local? Is this is federal money flowing better? Is this PFAS? I mean, there's lots of different things that you do in this. And just thought that since this is an area that seems to be undergoing a little bit better momentum, maybe you'd want to elaborate on that a bit more.

Yeah, Andy, happy to. So we had two sizable wins in the private sector. And unfortunately, I can't name the two clients, but they are in the industrial space. So private sector, industrial space, long-term contracts that we won and we were successful in. The book-to-bill ironically are, as a result, in the quarter was over 1.3 just for the environmental business. So that balance between private and public, we're holding true to it because in the public sector, those things that you just mentioned with regards to PFAS and the DOD continuing to go back to some of those regulatory items that got paused in 2025 we're capitalizing on that work too so going into fy27 we're feeling confident that our environmental business will return back to the levels that we previously had great thank you your next question comes from the line of chad dillard with bernstein your line is open please go ahead hey good evening everyone um so question for you guys on the

infrastructure and advanced facilities business um looks like on a constant currency basis margins work about 50 basis points uh can you talk about some of the moving parts there you know how much is mixed how much is pricing how much is up leverage from technology and then as we're thinking through our 2027 bridge how do you think about that opportunity going forward yeah so chat thanks for the question so i'd say um you know as you pointed out good good expansion and margins both sequentially as well as on a yearly basis as you may recall when we announced our margin trajectory at the February 2025 Investor Day, we laid out specific things in terms of the drivers of that margin. I'd say we've shown, as Sangeeta pointed out earlier, good operating leverage that continues to be a part of the core principle to drive continued margin expansion. So that'll be a mainstay going forward. But in addition to that, with the other three buckets, you might recall, we talked about mix, we talked about the commercial models, and then also use of global delivery. Really good progress on global delivery, especially with our life sciences and advanced manufacturing businesses use a lot of global delivery implementation. So that's driving a lot of the margin expansion. I'd say on the mixed side, you'll see more of an impact coming in FY27 and beyond. But operating leverage and global delivery are the bigger drivers in the first, you know, probably four or five quarters since we announced the targets. So, well on track in terms of margin expansion, and just for everybody's benefit, you'll recall that in fiscal year 25, we increased our margins by 110 basis points, and in fiscal year 26, at the midpoint of the guidance that we've provided, that'll represent another 90 basis points of margin expansion, so 200 basis points of margin expansion, which we think is industry-leading, and we have lots more margin expansion ahead of us as well.

Great, that's helpful. And then second question on data centers. So, you know, with a shift from 34 volt to 800 volt architecture, are you starting to see those sorts of data centers, you know, coming through your design pipeline? How does the design intensity change when you're making that shift? Any color you can give on that?

Yeah, there's complexities that are going on, Chad, that I'd say is increasing our scope. So, you know, that 800 volt DC solid state transformer is a big deal, has been well publicized. But I'd say I wouldn't point to that as the single source of that inflection point. the complexity and all of the utility requirements to feed the next generation of chips is increasing the complexity as well as the scale. And so that's where kind of it's in the sweet spot of Jacobs. And so, you know, if we look at the clients that we're working for, not just the hyperscalers, but also the neoclouds, you know, we're on that journey with them. And hence, you can see the results in our performance.

Great. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Dudas with Vertical Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, gentlemen. Good afternoon, Mike.

Good afternoon, Mike.

Bob, just maybe you could share some further thoughts on critical infrastructure and the tone of the types of business and what areas, you know, say the highway, maybe any brief comments on what may happen out of the next IIJA bill. And on PA, you know, with the change in government, it should be helpful. But anything with the integration over the past several months and how that could drive some more, you know, growth in some maybe business with your current customers, U.S. or other parts of the world to help drive, will be helpful on the margin and also the growth for PA itself.

Sounds great. So a lot there, Mike. let me kind of take one at a time. With regards to critical infrastructure, again, really solid growth. Just as a kind of a recap, that vertical contains our transportation business, energy and power, and cities and places. Our transportation business continues to be a real growth vector for us in all geographies and growing at a high single-digit rate. I'd say the subsectors that are channeling that growth are around aviation, the rail business globally, as well as in the ports and maritime world. Highways and bridges was a nice element in Q3. But those three, we've got a market-leading position there, and we're seeing a lot of activity there. E&P has been really, really strong, double-digit growth, predominantly in the U.S. around our T&D efforts, and I'd say outside the U.S., more on the generation side. And so if you think Sudlink or Marinus Link, you know, the renewables effort that's going on outside the U.S. has really been a nice growth trajectory for us. And then in Cities and Places, nice growth in the U.S., that Cities and Places team has some really, really strong building design capabilities, which were able to not only apply to venues, but also has been, you know, with the resources needs that we have in data centers. That team has really been facilitating that growth that we're seeing in the data center business. I'd say probably the one area that we continue to monitor is a bit of a, I'd say, temporarily pause in the Middle East, still grew in the Middle East overall because of our utility work. But that would be the only area where I'd say a little bit of a pause, but definitely some pipeline work that would show upside next year. On IJA, we actually feel we've been saying this for a while. With a possible extension going into December, we feel like the funding flows coming from IJA will continue. We've always said that there was always a two to three year lag from the expiry date, just as monies are obligated and then spent. We're still kind of at that 50% level spent. And so going into the midterms and coming out of the midterms and everything that's being set up for Build America 250, you know, hopefully next year, the funding levels have been pretty solid as a result of those stimulus bills and will continue on feeding all those things that I aforementioned around transportation. PA, I'd say the areas where we're starting to see some real growth, again, notwithstanding my comment in Q3 on the kind of the temporary disruption that we're already seeing come back in July. Defense and security in Europe, as the UK MOD has taken a leadership position on what an independent Europe defense posture looks like. PA is right in the middle of that. And the synergies with the U.S., with Jacobs in the INF business on setting up that defense infrastructure, whether it be ports and maritime or manufacturing facilities for the defense primes, is something that we've already started to see some nice progress there. And then transportation in the U.S., PA's got a strong presence in the U.K., and that's serving as a nice synergistic value as we look at the U.S. and the revenue synergies coming out of the PA relationship. So hopefully that gives you kind of a broader overview. Excellent, Bob. Thank you.

As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. Your next question comes from the line of Jerry Revich with Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. This is Andrew Ozion for Jerry Revich. I just wanted to ask, you know, last quarter you saw a significant expansion in the AI-specific data center infrastructure pipeline. I was curious if we can get an update on how that's progressing this quarter, how much of that pipeline is awarded or in backlog, and what's kind of the conversion rate that that you're embedding into your guidance and maybe even into next year.

Yeah, maybe I'll take the front part of that and then Venk you can take how much of that is in backlog. So Andrew, our backlog growth just in the data center space has been significant. And I'd say kind of in the order of doubling over the period of time, the pipeline has gone up three X. And so the visibility that we see before was probably six to nine months. We're getting visibility into the pipeline that extends out two to three years. So this is something that we see. And again, we're being selective because there is also a lot of speculative work that's out there. So the work that we are pursuing, let me back up, winning, executing, and continue to pursue, are those where they're established customers of ours that we've had for a while. The NeoCloud providers that are coming in are normally backed by folks that we've known for a long time within the hyperscale world. So overall, you know, really strong trajectory in the data center space.

Yeah, and if I extended beyond data centers into just the overall AI ecosystem, you recall last quarter, we said it was roughly 10% of our business. Now it's at 11% and, you know, the growth is actually accelerating. So we are doing a good job of converting that backlog into real revenue, and that's driving not only growth for us in Q4, but we expect significant growth in fiscal 27, which we'll quantify. I also want to add to this, you know, the previous question about revenue synergies, you know, obviously AI is a big part of what PA does as well in terms of, you know, implementing agenting AI for not only their clients, but it's an opportunity for us to also use it internally, both within the PA ecosystem as well as the Jacobs ecosystem. So AI is really a big driver of our growth for us. And you've seen that being demonstrated in terms of our revenue growth, but also over time with margin expansion.

Thank you. I appreciate that. You know, I guess, secondly, are customers kind of still indicating that the U.S. semiconductor construction activity is accelerating? And maybe what are some of your early thoughts for FY27 on that front? Thank you.

Short answer, Andrew, is absolutely yes. Our customers are pushing us to accelerate those designs, and we're working for the largest high-bandwidth memory chip manufacturer in the U.S. today. So that pipeline continues to grow. And now with the announcements that you've heard from Intel moving forward, as we've publicly stated, we've been the engineer record for Intel for a couple of decades. and that relationship, we stayed with them during this kind of slower time, and we're starting to see that pipeline grow going into 27.

That's great. I'll pass it on. Thank you for taking my questions.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Bob Purgata for closing remarks.

Well, thank you, everyone, for joining us for our earnings call. We look forward to engaging with many of you over the coming weeks, and have a great evening.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.