The AI race has a blue collar problem. Big Tech wants to fix that.
Days after Meta announced it was launching a $250 million program to train Americans for data center construction jobs, Google announced a similar initiative.
The search engine giant announced Thursday it will invest $50 million in skills training programs across the country in areas critical to building AI and energy infrastructure.
These are made for aspiring construction workers, electricians, plumbers, plumbers, welders, and other workers. A Google spokesperson said partnerships with some training programs are already in the works.
The move follows efforts announced by Oracle and Microsoft earlier this year to expand existing efforts aimed at building a pipeline of talent to support the AI boom. Together, they highlight the shortage of artisans who can build the data centers essential to powering AI ambitions, and the growing role of Big Tech in AI efforts.
“The constraint to growth is not to hire more engineers; it’s to build physical infrastructure,” said Rob Larca, a business professor at Tulane University. “Silicon Valley’s white-collar executives would not succeed without America’s blue-collar workers.”
The construction industry will need an estimated 349,000 new workers this year to meet the growing demand driven by AI, according to the industry group Associated Builders and Contractors.
Tech companies are more accustomed to training employees to use keyboards than bulldozers, so they’re partnering with organizations like the International Training Association for the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Industries to accomplish their goals. That makes companies like Meta and Google so attractive to supporters of a long-standing program aimed at expanding the pool of hard-hat talent.
“We welcome the support of industry leaders like Google to create good, family-sustaining jobs and meet our economy’s growing energy needs,” he said. Kenneth Cooper, International President of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said in a statement.
But Big Tech’s push to build more data centers is also attracting enemies.
Some critics say the huge number of layoffs by tech companies are related to AI, while residents across the United States have protested such projects in their communities in recent months. Seven in 10 Americans oppose living near data centers, according to a May Gallup poll.
In 2025, permits were issued for 176 new data centers in 34 states. This is the most new permits issued in a single year since the first permits were issued in 1976, Business Insider previously reported.