As artificial intelligence transforms offices and threatens many white-collar roles, one corner of the labor market looks increasingly future-proof: the skilled trades. Lowe’s, the home improvement giant, is betting big that America’s next wave of opportunity will be found not behind a desk, but on job sites and in workshops.

Through the Lowe’s Foundation, the company plans to invest $250 million over the next decade to help train 250,000 plumbers, carpenters, electricians and other trades professionals across the United States. The funding will flow primarily to community colleges and nonprofit organizations, underwriting tuition-free training programs, industry-recognized credentials and modern equipment that mirrors what workers will use on the job.

The initiative builds on more than $50 million Lowe’s has already committed to workforce development, but chief executive Marvin Ellison has framed this new push as a response to rapidly shifting labor dynamics. While AI can write code, analyze data and generate reports, it cannot rewire a house, repair a roof or replace a water heater. Those tasks still require people with hands-on expertise.

That expertise is in short supply. Industry groups warn that the U.S. construction sector alone will need hundreds of thousands of additional workers in the coming years just to meet demand. Electricians, plumbers and carpenters are aging out of the workforce faster than they are being replaced, even as wages rise and backlogs grow.

Ellison’s commitment to the trades is also rooted in his own story. Raised in a small Tennessee town where college was sold as the only path to success, he pursued business degrees and a corporate career while his brother attended vocational school and became a welder. Ellison has argued that jobs like his brother’s have been unfairly treated as second-class, despite offering solid incomes, entrepreneurial potential and far less educational debt than a traditional four-year degree.

By steering substantial philanthropic dollars into trade education, Lowe’s is trying to reset that narrative. The company’s message is that prosperity can come from many directions, and that a career spent building, wiring or repairing the physical world may prove not only resilient in the age of AI, but essential to keeping that world running.