Google is providing $500,000 for an initiative to boost the number of electrical workers in Iowa by 95%, a move that will help develop a labor force needed to build new energy infrastructure, the California-based company announced.

The money will be used to integrate artificial intelligence, or AI, tools into training curriculum for existing electrical workers as well as more than 700 apprentices, the company said.

The announcement was made Friday during a media event at the site of a Google data center under construction at Big Cedar Industrial Park in southwest Cedar Rapids. The 414-acre campus is expected to include five data centers. Construction of the first data center is expected to be completed in 2026.

Google, in a news release, also said it was expanding its data center facility in Council Bluffs.

Google said it was investing $7 billion in the cloud, digital and AI infrastructure projects in Cedar Rapids and Council Bluffs. The company did not say how the investment would be divided between the two projects.

The capital outlay will more than double the tech giant’s investment in Iowa. Since 2007, Google has spent more than $6.5 billion to develop over 2.8 million square feet of data center space in Council Bluffs.

Tech powerhouses have been entering or expanding their presence in Iowa since Google began developing in the state 18 years ago. Apple Inc., Meta, which owns Facebook, and Microsoft all have large data center campuses in Iowa. Smaller tech companies also have developed colocation data centers – those that support multiple tenants – in Iowa.

With the development of data centers comes the need for workers, especially those in the electrical trades.

In addition to investing $500,000 in training curriculum, Google said it is partnering with the Iowa Department of Education and Iowa’s community colleges to offer Google Career Certificates and AI Essential courses to students and faculty at K-12 schools and community colleges.

The courses are expected to help expand Iowa’s future and current workers’ skills in using AI.

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