- America’s Workforce Academy is a $115 million Meta training program to support construction roles.
- Meta knows the United States will need hundreds of thousands of skilled artisans
- The previous Level-Up fiber training program received 35,000 candidates in one week
Every time a hyperscaler announces a new data center project, a follow-up announcement regarding AI skills development and community funding usually arrives, but this time Meta is going even further in citizen support.
As part of the company’s new America’s Workforce Academy (AWA), it will support training for careers that support the broader data center boom in jobs such as 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 business skills in the United States.
Amid the current AI boom, hyperscalers are quickly realizing that giving workers AI skills is not enough, but that they face limits on how quickly they can scale their infrastructure.
Meta argued that America’s AI ambitions will require hundreds of thousands of additional professionals, including fiber optic technicians, welders, plumbers, electricians and more, and that with such a healthy investment, it’s proof that AI is evolving jobs rather than replacing them entirely.
“America’s Workforce Academy is our commitment to building this workforce with the same ambition and long-term thinking that we bring to technology itself,” explained Rachel Peterson, vice president of data centers.
Under the program, 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 this program.
But the benefits aren’t just tied to Meta: With workers able to earn accreditation from the National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER) and an America’s Workforce Certificate, the company says the skills learned will be able to “travel with the worker across employers and industry sectors.”
This follows the success of Meta’s Level-Up fiber optic installation training program, which received 35,000 applications in the first week.
“Skilled workers electrified rural America, one pole at a time,” said Meta President and Vice President Dina Powell McCormick. “Now, a new generation will lay the foundation and lay the fiber that will ensure American strength in this new era.”
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