Meta launched a program to train people to become data center fiber technicians, even if they lack prior experience.

Developed alongside CBRE, the LevelUp Fiber Technician Pathway will provide free training across four weeks, which will include hands-on experience and team activities designed to get trainees into data centers. Graduates will have the chance to work inside Meta's facilities, of which the tech giant operates or is building 27 such facilities in the U.S. alone.

“The future of the AI revolution depends on a highly skilled U.S. workforce, one that rises to the challenge of building and maintaining the complex systems that power innovation," Meta President Dina Powell McCormick noted. "Meta is proud to invest in technician training to support our ambitious infrastructure goals."

The hyperscaler’s CBRE team up comes as the true data center bottleneck is talent.

ManpowerGroup suggests that 75% of global IT firms are struggling to fill roles due to a lack of skilled talent. While on the networking side alone, Opengear figures indicate one-quarter of network engineers expected to retire in the next five years.

Meta’s training program looks to source staff amid plans to spend $600 billion on data centers by 2028 – despite reports it’s mulling whether to lay off more than 20% of its workforce to fuel that expansion.

Its training program will focus solely on the fiber technician field, with participants taught how to install fiber-optic cables and networking gear inside data centers, with skills imparted transferable to the broader construction space.

No prior experience is required, with Meta stressing the program is open to high school graduates, career changers, or workers wanting a skilled trade. The hyperscaler said it has supported more than 45,000 skilled trade jobs during construction since 2011, with more than 15,000 currently on a data center site.

“We are committed to leveraging the full scope and expertise of CBRE to develop and train a skilled workforce that will support Meta in building out their infrastructure,” CBRE CEO Bob Sulentic added.