The Lab is excited to share an April 2025 story by Stand Together, which explains why “nearly every industry should be paying attention” to the work the Lab and our partners are getting started in Texas.
The Lab’s Texas Flywheel Initiative is an employer-led effort focused on creating skills-based pathways to careers in the current and emerging Texas digital economy — including data centers, bitcoin mines, their construction, and the infrastructure needed to power them.
From the story:
Dr. Leah Ben-Ami, senior ecosystem designer at Education Design Lab, estimates that a single data center can employ anywhere from 50 to 150 full-time employees. These roles span every phase of a data center’s lifecycle — from construction (requiring electricians, plumbers, and HVAC technicians) to operations (demanding tech-focused expertise in cybersecurity, data science, IT, engineering, and management) to long-term maintenance and expansion (which may call for employees specialized in energy infrastructure and construction).
Many of these jobs don’t require a four-year college degree. Certifications (such as OSHA HAZWOPER), targeted skills training (like the short-term tech courses from Per Scholas), and hands-on apprenticeships can all equip workers for these roles.
The “dream,” Ben-Ami said, is for employees to get hired through these alternative, skills-focused pathways and learn and develop new abilities on the job, allowing them to advance.
“How cool would it be if the people who built your data centers were retained and then maintained the site they helped build?” she said.
While the story focuses on the booming digital economy in Texas — where it currently has the second-largest concentration of data centers in the country — it also notes the implications of creating a skills-based ecosystem model that can extend well beyond tech and AI.
Read the story: Why are 100,000 new jobs opening up in the U.S.?
