“The skilled craft segment of every economy is going to see a boom. You’ve going to have to be doubling and doubling and doubling every single year.”
And Huang is not just talking about the need—he’s backing it up with cash.
A single 250,000-square-foot data center can employ up to 1,500 construction workers during its buildout—many earning more than $100,000, plus overtime—all without requiring a college degree. Once complete, about 50 full-time workers maintain the facility. But each of those jobs spurs another 3.5 in the surrounding economy.
“For the young, 20-year-old Jensen, that’s graduated now, he probably would have chosen… more of the physical sciences than the software sciences,” he said.
Fortune reached out to Huang for further comment.
Huang isn’t the only CEO sounding the alarm about a looming shortage of skilled trades.
“I’ve even told members of the Trump team that we’re going to run out of electricians that we need to build out AI data centers,” Fink said at an energy conference in March. “We just don’t have enough.”
“I think the intent is there, but there’s nothing to backfill the ambition,” Farley told Axios. “How can we reshore all this stuff if we don’t have people to work there?”
By 21, he launched his own business—and last year grossed nearly $90,000. This year alone, he’s already hit six-figures. Unlike many of his peers facing student debt and uncertain job prospects, he said simply: “I don’t owe anybody anything.”
