AI is great if you're an electrician

The AI data center boom is creating an unprecedented demand for electricians and skilled trades, pushing wages higher and reshaping career paths

Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News via Getty Images

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Electricians never worried about being replaced by AI. They didn't expect it to make them rich, either.

Unless you've just woken up from a coma, you know about the data center buildout. Just five companies are on track to collectively spend roughly $700 billion this year on the facilities alone, nearly double what they spent in 2025. 

The first Stargate site in Abilene, Texas will roughly be the size of Central Park. Meta $META 1.36%'s Hyperion project is expected to reach four times that size. Projects this big can require up to 4,000 workers during peak construction, many of them in the skilled trades. OpenAI told the White House last fall that its planned data centers alone would require roughly 20% of the existing workforce of skilled tradespeople.

Even after securing the land and the capital, which is no small........

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