Dive Brief:
- CBRE and Meta are teaming up for a multiyear initiative — LevelUp — to recruit and train thousands of fiber technicians to build data centers in the U.S., the firms announced Monday.
- The training program aims to address the shortage of fiber technicians needed to build next-generation data center infrastructure. Under the initiative, CBRE will train thousands of workers to install technical infrastructure, fiber-optic cables, network gear and other mission-critical equipment at Meta data center construction sites.
- “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 said in a statement.
Dive Insight:
Other hyperscalers like Google and Amazon have launched initiatives to address the skilled labor shortage standing in the way of data center development and operations. Google in 2023launched its Skilled Trades and Readiness, or STAR program, where it partners with local community colleges and nonprofits to provide training in fiber optics deployment and other skills needed to get data centers built and running. And Amazon in 2024 launched its Information Infrastructure Pre-Apprenticeship Program, which provides training in job safety, electrical and mechanical systems, fiber and data center operations.
Sustaining outsized growth in the data center market is a focus for CBRE this year, following the company’s $1.2 billion acquisition of Pearce Services in November, Sulentic said on the firm’s Q4 2025 earnings report. In addition to that purchase, the firm’s internal data center solutions business is growing at 20% per year and is expected to reach $2 billion in 2026, he said.
The commercial real estate services giant says it serves the data center lifecycle through leasing, capital markets, design, build, management, maintenance and retrofit services for hyperscale, colocation and enterprise clients.
“We’ve created an integrated offering for the most important hyper scalers, [which] consists of services related to a data center’s technical infrastructure called the white space and the building operating systems called the gray space, along with traditional facilities management services,” Sulentic said.
Data center and digital infrastructure work across CBRE’s four business segments accounted for approximately 14% of the firm’s core EBITDA in 2025, Sulentic said.
Under its partnership with Meta, CBRE will establish and run multiple training centers across the U.S. starting this summer. The curriculum will be designed to equip trainees with skills that are in high demand in construction and data centers industries, providing workers with a “foundation for long-term, transferable careers in the skilled trades sector,” the companies said in the release.
Graduates will have the opportunity to work at Meta construction sites through CBRE’s contractor network, the release states.
Meta has 27 data centers under construction or operational in the U.S., with more in the planning stages, the companies said. These projects have supported more than 35,000 skilled trade or operational jobs, the companies say.
“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,” Dina Powell McCormick, president and vice chairman at Meta, said in a statement.
