- America's Workforce Academy is a $115m Meta training scheme to support construction roles
- Meta knows the US will need hundreds of thousands of skilled tradespeople
- Previous Level-Up fiber training scheme received 35k applicants in one week
Every time a hyperscaler announces a new data center project, a complementary announcement around AI upskilling and community funding usually arrives, but this time, Meta is taking citizen support one step further.
Under the company's new America's Workforce Academy (AWA), it will support training for careers that support the broader data center boom across jobs like construction and infrastructure.
Meta will use AWA to commit $115 million in funding in 2026, making it one of the largest private sector investments in trade skills in the US.
Meta is now upskilling data center construction workers
Amid the ongoing AI boom, hyperscalers are quickly realizing that giving workers AI literacy skills alone isn't enough, but that they're facing limitations as to how quickly they can expand their infrastructure.
Meta argued that America's AI ambitions will require hundreds of thousands of additional tradespeople, including fiber technicians, welders, plumbers, electricians and more, and with such a healthy investment, it's proof that AI is evolving jobs instead of replacing them entirely.
"America’s Workforce Academy is our commitment to building that workforce with the same ambition and long-term thinking we bring to the technology itself," Data Centers VP Rachel Peterson explained.
Under the scheme, workers will have access to free five-week courses with guaranteed employment opportunities on Meta's data center projects. Baton Rouge, Houston, Indianapolis and Columbus will be the first regions to benefit from the scheme.
But the benefits aren't just tied to Meta – with workers able to earn National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER) accreditation and an an America’s Workforce Certificate, the company says the skills earned will be able to "travel with the worker across employers and industry sectors."
This comes after the success of Meta's Level-Up fiber installation training program, which received 35,000 applications in the first week.
"Skilled workers electrified rural America one pole at a time," Meta President and Vice Chair Dina Powell McCormick explained. "Now a new generation will pour the foundations and lay the fiber that secures American strength in this new age."
