10
Loading video...
By Stanley Tobin
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
The global debate over artificial intelligence (AI) has become fixated on one question: Which jobs will disappear? But that framing overlooks another economic shift already taking shape.
As AI makes some knowledge work faster and more productive, it is simultaneously increasing demand for something algorithms cannot provide on their own: the physical infrastructure, technical labor, and skilled workers required to make the AI economy function.
That makes 2026 an important moment to reconsider what technological progress means for work.
Read More on Leadership Insights
PwC's 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer found that companies in the most AI-exposed sectors recorded 34 percent productivity growth in 2025 compared with 2018, while workers with AI skills commanded an average 62 percent wage premium.
AI is clearly changing the economics of knowledge work. But every digital breakthrough still depends on a remarkably physical economy underneath it.
AI's Physical Infrastructure
AI does not exist in the cloud in any meaningful physical sense. It requires data centers, power generation, transmission infrastructure, cooling systems, construction, manufacturing, and continuous maintenance.
Before an AI model answers a prompt, electricians must wire facilities, HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) technicians must keep equipment cool, construction crews must build them, and industrial specialists must keep them operational. The more digital our economy becomes, paradoxically, the more valuable some forms of physical expertise may become.
The labor market is already revealing the tension. A Deloitte study in 2024 estimate that U.S. manufacturing could require 3.8 million new workers between 2024 and 2033, with nearly 1.9 million positions potentially going unfilled if existing workforce challenges persist.
The firm specifically identifies competition for welders, electricians, and other trades as one factor that could intensify shortages. Similar pressures matter beyond America as governments and businesses worldwide invest in data centers, energy systems, advanced manufacturing, and digital infrastructure.
AI Is Changing the Definition of Valuable Work
For decades, many societies treated vocational education as a second-tier alternative to university. We built a cultural hierarchy in which working behind a desk signaled advancement while working with tools too often suggested that someone had settled for less.
AI is exposing how outdated that hierarchy has become. An algorithm may increasingly assist with research, analysis, administration, and coding. It still cannot independently wire a hospital, repair a transformer, install an industrial cooling system, or maintain the machinery on which modern economies depend.
A more immediate danger is that we prepare workers for yesterday’s definition of valuable work while shortages deepen in the occupations tomorrow’s economy desperately needs.
If education systems continue steering nearly everyone toward traditional academic pathways while treating apprenticeships and technical training as alternatives of last resort, countries could spend billions building an AI economy without developing enough people capable of physically constructing and maintaining it.
Invest in Skilled Workers
The better future is one in which AI raises productivity while skilled workers capture some of the value created around it. Young people would see technical careers as genuine first choices, experienced tradespeople would have clearer pathways into advanced infrastructure projects, and employers would have a deeper workforce capable of supporting manufacturing, energy, automation, and data-center expansion.
Higher education would remain essential, but it would no longer be treated as the only respectable route to economic mobility.
That requires a tangible change now. Governments and employers should expand paid apprenticeships in electrical, HVAC, welding, industrial maintenance, and other infrastructure-critical trades, while secondary schools should publish apprenticeship, employment, and earnings pathways alongside university outcomes.
Students deserve to compare these options with equal visibility before choosing a career.
AI may change which skills command the greatest premium, but it should also change which skills we choose to respect.
The future will not be built by algorithms alone. Someone still has to build the world they run on.
Stanley Tobin is Senior Director at Young America Capital, where he advises middle-market business owners on mergers and acquisitions, business valuation, and long-term growth strategies.
The views expressed are the author's own.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines