On the surface, the AI ​​talent war is about engineers and developers. It’s actually about plumbers and electricians.

In recent months we have seen how some of the big big tech companies are opening their portfolio to hire the best AI talents: among the most voracious is goalbut the arrival of Jony Ive to OpenAI It was a flash signing. They may not have the resume of the former design director or make as many headlines, but the AI ​​talent war is also being played in another league: that of blue-collar technicians, such as the CEO of NVIDIA already predicted months ago and more recently, at the World Economic Forum from Davos.

(Another) bottleneck for AI. Because for ChatGPT to have a new model or Nano Banana to level up, data centers are needed. And at the same time, huge quantities of electricity supplied by energy plants. We have already seen that data centers are proliferating like mushrooms (or at least, their planning, materializing them is another more arduous and slow story which leads some companies to consider ride them in space). So there are big tech that are being becoming energetic.

But to assemble and maintain everything, you need electricians, plumbers or air conditioning technicians. And there are precisely not a few: the union that represents electricians in the United States and Canada mentions in a blog post of specific data center projects that can quadruple the current number of its members.

Blue collar technicians wanted. The problem is that they are scarce: according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statisticsbetween now and 2034 there will be an average shortage of 81,000 electricians per year. Furthermore, demand in the next decade will increase by 9%, well above average. According to this McKinsey studyBy 2030, the United States will require 130,000 more electricians and 240,000 construction workers. The absence of professionals such as bricklayers, welders or plumbers also occurs in Europe, as collect the latest report of the European Employment Service. In Spain at the moment takes its toll on housing construction.

There is no one to inherit the workshop anymore. Wired picks statements by the economist responsible for the American Builders Association, Anirban Basu, who tells how in the past workers passed on their skills to their offspring, but now they are encouraged to pursue university studies. The problem is that baby boomers are retiring, leaving a void that no one is filling. Dan Quinonez, its counterpart in the plumbing sector, comes to say the same: They are doing everything possible, but it is a structural problem that has no immediate solution.

Data centers are not places for newbies. On the other hand, data centers are not just any job and it is not only because of the technical requirements, but because the deadlines are tight, leaving little room for delays or errors. This is crucial as it is normal for apprentices to be trained on the job. Incorporating workers quickly and safely is a challenge, as David Long tells of the National Association of Electrical Contractors.

What Big Tech are doing. This reality does not go unnoticed by big technology companies and Google has already gone ahead: last spring advertisement that would make a financial injection to the Electrical Training Alliance, an organization that trains electricians with the goal of improving the skills of 100,000 active electricians and training 30,000 before 2030.

The point is that AI also competes with other sectors: housing, hospitals, industries… the competition is fierce. But the companies behind it have an ace up their sleeve: those demands and tight deadlines usually translate into higher salaries and more overtime. As Charles White tells of the Association of Plumbing Contractors, this causes union workers to change companies in search of better conditions. Without going any further, Jensen Huang prediction offers with six-figure salaries.

How long will the boom last? The installation of a data center is a finite project in time that, once completed, is limited to maintaining a small permanent maintenance team. Likewise, and although we are in a phase of AI expansion with enormous potential, sooner or later it will lose steam. At that time, we will see what will happen: of course, taking into account the needs in other sectors and the hole that the retiring generations are leaving, it seems that it will not cost them much to find another job.

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Cover | Sammyayot254, Jimmy Nilsson Masth and Xpda chaddavis.photography