OpenAI and North America’s Building Trades Unions Partner Up to Promote Apprenticeship in AI Construction Boom

Washington, D.C. – March 11, 2026 – Today, Sean McGarvey, President of North America’s Building Trades Unions (“NABTU”) joined Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, to announce a new collaboration to help support and expand training pathways into the skilled construction trades. OpenAI and NABTU will work together to help ensure that the construction of AI-related infrastructure supports union careers, strengthens union-registered apprenticeship programs, and creates economic opportunity in the communities where this infrastructure is built.

The infrastructure required to support advanced artificial intelligence – including computing facilities, electrical transmission, and energy generation – will drive substantial construction activity in the coming years. Members of the building trades affiliates will play a critical role in building this infrastructure and in doing so supporting the continued growth of the American economy.

Through this partnership, OpenAI and NABTU seek to foster constructive engagement around policy development, project entitlement, workforce development, labor standards, project safety and the responsible expansion of infrastructure associated with artificial intelligence technologies.

“This partnership commits to shared values and is a recognition that none of this work happens without America’s best-in-class, highly skilled construction workforce,” said Sean McGarvey, President of NABTU. “No workforce matches our skill, capacity, productivity, or safety. And no one is better positioned to deliver the scale of construction needed for the advanced AI facilities, modern transmission systems, and new energy generation driving America’s economic growth. With our collectively bargained $2.5 billion annual training investment, our nationwide pipeline is built to recruit, train, and deploy the highest-skilled craft professionals in every region and deliver massive, complex projects with unmatched safety, sustainability, and community benefit. Today’s AI construction surge demands precision, speed, and expertise, and this is exactly what we do best. Our workforce development pipeline is built for moments like this, and we are ready to deliver.”

“Ensuring the benefits of AI reach everyone starts with the workers who will build the infrastructure that powers it,” said Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI. “Across the country, highly skilled union construction workers are laying the foundation for the AI economy. Under the leadership of President Sean McGarvey and his affiliated unions, NABTU knows how to recruit and train that workforce at scale, and we’re excited to work together to help ensure this infrastructure is built by the best-trained workforce in the country.”

NABTU represents more than 3 million hard-working, skilled, and trained workers in every community across the nation and supports, through its 14 affiliates, robust registered training programs in every state. In 2023, NABTU and industry partners launched TradesFutures, a national non-profit 501(c)3 created to expand access to union construction apprenticeships and careers, especially for underrepresented communities across the country. Today, TradesFutures Apprenticeship Readiness Programs (ARPs) represent the largest pre-apprenticeship network in any domestic industry, with over 270 ARPs in 34 states. As part of their commitment to the Building Trades and apprenticeship, OpenAI has also committed to supporting TradesFutures to expand training and recruitment.

“We are grateful for OpenAI’s investment in our model,” said Marina Zhavoronkova, Executive Director of TradesFutures, “but moreover, this investment signals OpenAI’s focus on supporting family-sustaining careers in communities in which they plan to be involved.”

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Media Contact: Betsy Barrett, (202) 997-3266 | bbarrett@nabtu.org

About NABTU: North America’s Building Trades Unions is an alliance of 14 national and international unions in the building and construction industry collectively representing over 3 million skilled craft professionals in the United States and Canada.  Each year, our unions and signatory contractor partners invest over $2.5 billion in private-sector money to fund and operate over 1,900 apprenticeship training and education facilities across North America that produce the safest, most highly trained, and most productive, skilled craft workers anywhere in the world.  NABTU is dedicated to creating economic security and employment opportunities for its construction workers by safeguarding wage and benefits standards, promoting responsible private capital investments, investing in renowned apprenticeship and training, and creating more construction career pathways to the middle class for women, communities of color, Indigenous people, veterans, and the justice-involved. For more information, please visit nabtu.org.