The world needs more plumbers and electricians
It may not have made the headlines when world leaders and CEOs met at the World Economic Forum at Davos, but the fireside chat between BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Nvidia president Jensen Huang, should worry everyone who has felt the trauma of having to book a tradesperson.
Trying to get a quote for some plumbing or electrical work at home is as easy as using a metal detect to find a cache of gold on the beach. While the residents of Eastbourne this week munched on the news that their beach had washed up a container load of chips of the eating variety, it’s the demand for silicon chips, and, in particular those power hungry AI chips, that’ll eat up demand for tradespeople.
Rather than economies experiencing job losses arising from greater use of AI in the workforce, Huang described the AI boom as the “largest infrastructure buildout in human history”, which he claimed would create a lot of jobs. “It’s wonderful that the jobs are related to tradecraft,” he said. “Everybody should be able to make a great living. You don’t need to have a PhD in computer science to do so.
Specifically Huang said the tech sector will need plumbers, electricians, network technicians, construction workers and steel workers, as well as the people who install and fit out the equipment. Mirroring the views presented by Microsoft’s Brad Smith in a March 2025 Fox Business article, Huang said there was a great shortage of such people. Where there’s the most demand, Huang said there will be a salary hike. “We’re talking about six-figure salaries for people who are building chip factories or computer factories or AI factories.”
The latest AI hardware requires water cooling and more energy per rack than ever before. It needs a total rethink of how to power and cool datacentre facilities.
In a recent Linkedin post, commercial real estate advisor Kris McGee, said datacentre are paying electricians $130 per hour, flying them on private jets to job sites and building “man camps” in rural Texas.
London-based IT rollout specialist, Optrium recently estimated that electrical systems account for 40% to 45% of construction costs while cooling and heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems represent about 15% to 20% of total expenses. The efficiency of these systems are vital to operating high-powered datacentres, such as those running demanding AI training and inference workloads. And keeping the electrical and cooling systems optimal means hiring highly skilled electricans, HVAC engineers and plumbers for water cooled systems.
As demand for these skills increases with the escalation in AI datacentre builds, salaries of tradepeople will inevitably rise. The bottom line is that this demand will mean hiring a talented plumber or electrician is going become harder and will cost more.