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As Big Tech dumps billions of dollars into America’s data center buildout, a slew of opportunities have opened up to the electricians wiring these massive facilities.
In some cases, the scale of the projects and the demanding construction timelines are fueling talent wars for the industry’s best and brightest. The US-based International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) has argued that its workers are “powering the AI Revolution,” and a set of “Data Center Principles” published in March argues that union labor is “essential to the future of AI.” Tech companies are trying to meet the moment: Meta recently announced a skilled trade academy program, and Google committed $50 million to help train people in skilled trades.
But amid growing national opposition to data centers, debates over the ethics of the massive buildout have started to pop up in some online pockets of the community.
Threads about how AI will affect the economy now pepper r/electricians, a subreddit with around half a million monthly visitors. Some users wonder whether the work will eventually prompt widespread job losses. Others aren’t sure if their labor makes them complicit in the damage done to local communities or whether it’s unethical to take on data center work. For some, the answer is a firm no. Ultimately, they argue, work is work.
One electrician based in the Midwest says he no longer tells people what he does for a living.
As a “single guy attempting to date,” he tells WIRED, “the conversation shifts or gets shut down altogether” when he reveals his line of work. He recalls a handful of instances in which people told him “how terrible it is that you’re contributing to something like that.”
“That’s usually the last time you hear from them,” he says. (The electrician, like others who spoke to WIRED, requested anonymity because he isn’t authorized to speak to reporters.)
He has some worries, mostly around the proliferation of scams and how “corporate greed” could spell doom for workers. But he also specifically sought out work at a data center and was willing to take a pay cut to get in the door. He saw a unique opportunity for upward mobility—though he was hired as an electrician, he was promoted to a management role within months. He hopes to eventually transition into an engineering role.
“I did just see it as, ‘Well, this is most likely going to be a major part of our future. And if you can’t beat them, join them,” he says.
An electrician named Ryan, meanwhile, says that he’s never worked at a data center and probably never will. “I think world governments, not just our own, are becoming more right-wing and more fascistic,” he tells WIRED. He doesn’t trust corporations operating within this context and believes executives like Elon Musk and Alex Karp are all “suspicious at best.”
If AI were destined for benevolent use, Ryan believes, things would be different. But he thinks the reality looks more like “four or five AI companies just exchanging money with each other in a circle.” He’s also concerned about the AI bubble.
As an IBEW worker, Ryan has some agency over his work—he can say yes or no to a job that the union offers. Ryan says his branch occasionally serves up small jobs for local data centers, which he has found easy to avoid. Even if he were out of work for a long time, he would still find it “really tough to want to take that job call.” (He would also say no to other jobs he deems unethical, like ones at private prisons.)
