Meta’s $115M Baton Rouge academy reflects AI’s growing demand for skilled infrastructure labor

Meta announced this week another AI investment: $115 million for pilot AI workforce training facilities — including one in Baton Rouge.

Those surprised by the announcement are not alone. Baton Rouge officials found out the academy was official when everyone else did, according to a WAFB report.

“I have a bunch of questions, and I didn’t get the official-official word,” East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sid Edwards told WAFB. “I don’t believe it’s done ‘til it’s done, and we got that word.”

The announcement also came as a surprise after thousands at Meta have lost their jobs, or been reassigned, in the company’s shift to AI — a bet that includes a $27 billion, 2,250-acre campus in Richland Parish.

Called America’s Workforce Academy (AWA), Meta’s new program trains tradespeople in skills needed to build the physical infrastructure for AI development, according to a Meta press release. That includes fiber technicians, welders, plumbers, electricians and other trades. 

The roughly five-week program is free, according to Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Meta provides tuition, airfare, lodging, and a daily stipend during training.

Graduates receive trade certifications, and all graduates receive a guaranteed job offer with one of Meta’s contractor partners. Graduates receive a National Center for Construction Education and Research credential and an America’s Workforce Certificate.

“Nowadays, instant job trading — AI, trades is where the world is really headed, so to be selected as one of the training sites is gigantic for us,” Edwards told WAFB.

The program does not require any previous experience in the trades or prior education. It has the potential to be an inclusive pathway for all kinds of job seekers, according to the National Urban League, one of Meta’s partners in the initiative.

“By removing cost barriers, providing industry-recognized credentials, and guaranteeing employment, AWA is helping to build a more equitable and resilient workforce for the future,” National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial said in the Meta press release. 

The other AI workforce locations Meta selected are Houston, Indianapolis and Columbus.

Meta has not announced exactly where the academy will be located in Baton Rouge. 

“The artificial intelligence revolution shows that America’s technological progress and skilled workforce are still inseparable,” Meta President and Vice-Chairman Dina Powell McCormick and TV host and CEO of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation Mike Rowe wrote in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal. “To maintain our technological edge, we need to build infrastructure at scale and with great speed. 

“This requires better pathways into high-paying trades for Americans hungry for opportunity,” the piece said.

Tech giants ditch software engineers, seek tradespeople

Meta has made one thing clear in 2026: the once social media-focused company is now an AI firm. 

In April, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company would spend between $125 billion and $145 billion in 2026, more than doubling what the company spent in 2025, largely on AI. 

Some 7,000 Meta employees learned last month they were being reassigned to AI-focused jobs. 

In May, Meta laid off 8,000 employees, a 10% cut of its total workforce. There are rumors of more job cuts. 

Many of the workers laid off in May were software engineers and managers.

Now, Meta is catching on to another industry trend: academies for a workforce in skilled, physical trades to build its AI infrastructure. 

Other tech giants, like Google, Amazon and Microsoft have similar bootcamps that tout pathways to sustainable jobs in the AI-future. 

Each of those companies has also carried out major layoffs this year. Google, owned by Alphabet, quietly cut jobs from its cloud computing division this month. Amazon slashed a whopping 16,000 corporate jobs in January in a move CNBC called an “anti-bureaucracy push.”

There’s word of massive layoffs reportedly coming next month to Microsoft’s Xbox.

Data centers reshape Louisiana’s job-growth conversation

The apparent shift away from managers and software developers to employees with physical skills to build data centers and other AI buildings is not a tradeoff but a partnership, according to Meta President and Vice-Chairman McCormick.

“The skilled trades and Silicon Valley need each other — and America’s future needs them both,” she wrote with Rowe in the Wall Street Journal. 

The investment comes at a transformative time for data centers in Louisiana, with three major projects coinciding across the state: Meta’s Hyperion, Hut 8’s West Feliciana Parish development and Amazon’s planned campus in Bossier and Caddo Parishes.

“Grid monitorization, data center construction — those core skills, construction — are going to be jobs in core industries that we expect to boom over the next decade,” Meta economic opportunity director Diana Doukas told WAFB.

Baton Rouge and Louisiana officials said Meta’s AI academy could be a resource for Louisianans who want to be on the right side of the present layoff/job opportunity divide being caused by corporations shifting to AI. 

“We need people to get reskilled, upskilled, a different kind of skilled to position themselves to fill the jobs and make a good living,” Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Susan Bourgeois told WAFB.