A quiet but consequential shift is occurring in the United States economy. The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing and digital services is driving the proliferation of data centers across the nation.
This growth reflects more than consumer demand or technological progress; it indicates a profound restructuring of the workforce that community colleges must address with urgency and strategic clarity. Investment in data centers can stimulate GDP growth, create thousands of high-paying jobs and foster innovation across multiple sectors.
Although data centers rarely feature in public discourse, they underpin a wide range of modern activities, from clinical diagnostics and financial transactions, to university research computing, transportation logistics, municipal services and streaming entertainment. Their reliability and performance increasingly influence economic competitiveness and institutional capacity.
Yet, the sector’s rapid growth exposes a critical constraint: an insufficient and lagging talent pipeline. Consequently, a widening gap exists between the skilled workforce available and the personnel needed to build, operate and maintain these centers at the pace required by the digital economy.
Growing pains
Recent industry data highlight the magnitude of the challenge. Amazon, Google and Microsoft operate over 520 data centers in the United States, with more than 400 additional facilities under construction or development. These multiyear projects rely on thousands of workers across the electrical, mechanical, information technology and construction sectors.
According to the Uptime Institute, staffing shortages have disrupted operations at more than half of data center construction sites, a sharp increase from the previous year. Contractors report backlogs approaching a year, indicating a persistent workforce shortfall rather than a temporary imbalance.
The impact of these shortages extends beyond the technology sector. If the data center workforce does not expand, the nation’s digital economy will face constraints, along with institutions that depend on reliable computing capacity, including universities, hospitals, financial systems and public agencies.
Addressing this challenge requires coordinated action, and community colleges are uniquely positioned to lead because their core strengths align directly with the skills needed for the data center workforce. These facilities depend on technicians who can manage power distribution, maintain cooling and thermal systems, service and replace hardware, support secure operations, and respond swiftly to system failures. The necessary skills draw from information technology (IT), heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), electrical and electromechanical technology, and cybersecurity — fields in which community colleges have a long history of delivering practical, career-focused training.
Many entry-level roles in this sector require only an associate degree or an industry-recognized credential, with salaries typically ranging from $60,000 to $80,000, offering direct career pathways into engineering, IT, systems administration and critical infrastructure management.
Even where relevant programs exist, the workforce gap persists due to structural challenges, as data center operations are inherently cross-functional and demand integrated competencies that transcend traditional program boundaries and extend beyond single-track workforce pathways.
This work lies at the intersection of information technology and the skilled trades, which higher education has traditionally regarded as distinct fields. Closing this gap will require more than launching new programs. It will require a multidisciplinary approach and new institutional arrangements, including coordinated curricula across departments, sustained faculty collaboration across disciplines, and partnership models that more closely connect education with employment.
Adapting on both sides
An example of this type of institutional adaptation is underway at the College of DuPage (COD) in Illinois. To address both regional opportunities and national demand, the college secured a $425,000 workforce development grant to create new pathways into data center careers. Faculty from computer and IT, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration (HVACR), and electromechanical technology collaborate with peer colleges to develop a facility maintenance degree and a data technician certificate, integrating competencies rarely offered within a single program.
Beginning in late 2025, the programs will proceed through curriculum approval, with implementation expected shortly thereafter. Students will receive training on precision cooling systems, high-density server clusters, and monitoring tools designed to support continuous uptime, gaining practical exposure to the systems and expectations they will encounter from day one.
COD’s approach also reflects a broader shift in how leading employers develop talent. Google’s Skilled Trades and Readiness program offers short-term preparation for mechanical and electrical trades, including skills relevant to data center construction and maintenance. Microsoft’s Data Center Technician program provides structured training in hardware installation, diagnostics and lifecycle management. Together, these initiatives highlight a key point: the industry is willing to invest in workforce development, but it cannot build the pipeline alone.
To scale talent at the pace required, employers need educational partners who can deliver coordinated, job-ready training. For example, Amazon plans to invest $15 billion in northern Indiana to establish new data center campuses and advance AI innovation. This investment is expected to create over 1,100 high-skilled jobs and support thousands more across the data center supply chain.
Meeting the challenge
If community colleges are to expand capacity for this emerging sector, they will require sustained public support, enabling policies and more flexible credentialing approaches, such as stackable credentials, cross-disciplinary pathways and accelerated training models that can keep pace with industry needs. Without a sufficient supply of qualified workers to build and operate data centers, the digital economy cannot scale, and persistent shortages will slow innovation, limit institutional capacity and constrain growth.
The potential benefits, however, are equally compelling. Community colleges educate more than one-third of the nation’s undergraduates and serve as primary access points for technical training. They can expand pathways into high-wage, high-growth technology careers, strengthen regional economies by aligning more closely with employers, and help shape the workforce that will sustain the nation’s digital infrastructure.
Data center expansion is more than a technological trend; it represents a more profound shift in how infrastructure, work and knowledge intersect in the digital era. For community colleges, the question is not whether to engage, but how quickly and effectively institutions can adapt. To build the workforce required by the data center economy, community colleges will play a central role. Their impact will extend beyond meeting labor-market needs to enhancing technological capacity, economic resilience, and access to opportunity.
