Nvidia CEO tells college grads that electricians, plumbers and iron workers have a leg up – and there’s no degree needed for any of them

It's a striking message to deliver at one of the country's top computer science and engineering universities (2). But the data suggests Huang is onto something, and for anyone weighing their career options, the numbers are hard to ignore.

The AI buildout runs on human hands

The scale of infrastructure being built to power artificial intelligence is staggering. Fortune reports that capital spending from the largest U.S. tech companies could hit $700 billion this year alone, driven by data center construction and the infrastructure needed to train and deploy AI models (3).

Worldwide, McKinsey projected the data center boom could generate close to $7 trillion in investment by 2030 (4).

None of that gets built without people swinging hammers, pulling wire and laying pipe.

Randstad's March analysis of more than 150 million U.S. job postings found that demand for skilled trades is now growing three times faster than for professional desk-based roles (5).

Since generative AI hit the mainstream in late 2022 (6), postings for construction workers, welders and electricians are up between 18% and 30%. More specialized roles have seen even sharper spikes: demand for robotics technicians jumped 107%, and HVAC engineers surged 67%.

"AI can't build data centers, upgrade power grids, or maintain its own infrastructure," Greg Dyer, Randstad North America's chief commercial officer, said in the report (7).

Meanwhile, the pipeline of workers entering the trades isn't keeping up. Companies can't hire fast enough to replace the waves of older tradespeople now entering retirement — Randstad found for every 100 young workers entering manufacturing, 102 are leaving (8).

Huang put it simply in his speech: "This is the largest technology infrastructure buildout in human history and a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reindustrialize America (9)."

What these jobs actually pay

Here's what makes Huang's message relevant beyond the rhetoric: the pay in the skilled trades has become competitive with many college-degree roles, but without the debt.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median annual wage for electricians was $62,350 as of May 2024, with employment projected to grow 9% through 2034 — much faster than the average across all occupations (10).

The BLS also reports median pay for plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters was $62,970 (11). The top 10% of electricians earn more than $106,030 (12) annually; for plumbers, that figure exceeds $105,150 (13).

Those earnings come through apprenticeship programs, not four-year degrees. Electricians, for instance, typically complete a four- to five-year apprenticeship (14) that includes paid on-the-job training from day one. As Fortune noted (15),(16), these paths let workers earn while they learn — offering a faster, often cheaper, route into the workforce than a traditional college education.

Huang has previously suggested that trades workers could soon command six-figure salaries even early in their careers, according to Fortune (17). And CNBC reporting backs that up: advertised wages for HVAC engineers have risen 10–15% over the past four years, and specialists moving into high-level data center roles can see pay bumps of 25–30% (18).

The caveats worth knowing

The opportunity is real, but it isn't guaranteed, as surge in skilled trade demand is heavily concentrated in data center construction, and not all signals in the broader industry are positive.