Has the "dead-end major" label been removed? DeepSeek is now actively recruiting civil engineering professionals.

You're awake! This is another world, and today is the big day when you will test your spiritual root to decide your future cultivation direction!

(Pulse taking)

Huh? It's actually a top-tier dual spiritual root.

Earth and Wood!

To restore the glory of Civil Engineering, AI is duty-bound

Civil engineering, a discipline whose public reputation on the internet completely crushes the four majors of "Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science and Materials".

I do not know since when, whenever people mention it, the first things that pop into their minds are countless jokes describing "Drawing lines under the lamp after drunk, working at the construction site all night in dream", as well as all kinds of spoof memes about "leaving the site with a bucket".

But...

Recently, this recruitment notice from the DeepSeek IDC data center team vaguely makes people sense that "the glory of civil engineering is about to be restored".

According to media reports, DeepSeek is planning to build a large data center with about 1GW computing power in Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia. This is also the core reason why it is recruiting a large number of professionals in electrical engineering, HVAC, energy, civil engineering and other related fields.

"Every generation will encounter its own infrastructure revolution. In the past, it was railways, power grids and the internet. Today, it is the ultra-large-scale computing power clusters that support the development of AI," the team stated in DeepSeek's recruitment notice.

To be honest, DeepSeek is not the first tech giant that extends an olive branch to the "Civil Engineering Sect".

In addition to well-known enterprises such as Alibaba Cloud, Tencent and Zhipu, which have all invested heavily in AI infrastructure, Meta on the other side of the ocean has even opened a "construction worker school" to avoid competing with other competitors for high-quality construction teams when expanding its data centers in the future.

Workforce Academy Program.

Meta promised to invest 115 million US dollars in this program this year, and in cooperation with CBRE and the Associated General Contractors of America, it will provide 5 weeks of systematic training for skilled workers for free.

In addition, Meta also guarantees that all trainees will get a job at a data center construction site in the future.

The declining Civil Engineering Sect and its golden age

Let's turn the clock back gently to the golden age of the "Civil Engineering Sect".

In 2000, China's urbanization rate was 36.09%; in 2020, this figure rose to 63.89%. Behind the soaring data are not only countless high-rise buildings springing up, but also the booming development of civil engineering disciplines across the country.

In terms of data, in 2008 and 2022, the number of domestic universities offering civil engineering majors was 392 and 572 respectively.

However, with the ecological changes of the relevant market, as well as the initial debuff of "high work intensity + far away from home" of civil engineering majors, more and more civil engineering graduates leave the industry after graduation, and the reputation of civil engineering has gradually changed from "the chosen one" to "one of the biggest pitfalls".

The 2024 Report on China's Undergraduate Employment points out that among the graduates of 2019-2023, the proportion of people engaged in construction engineering is getting smaller and smaller.

Even in just 5 years, civil engineering has ranked first in the decline rate of "proportion of graduates engaged in their own major" (the list covers 46 majors in total).

Under this background, even professors from the College of Civil Engineering of Tongji University frankly stated in the admission information:

"We plan to recruit 2 to 3 master's students in 2023; please do not contact me if you plan to completely leave the civil engineering industry in the future and switch to the computer industry or the financial industry."

In addition, the "Eight Old Schools of Architecture" except Tsinghua University have also faced the dilemma of falling admission ranks for new students. As for the civil engineering enrollment season in other universities, in order to attract students, measures such as "merging with other disciplines for broad-category enrollment" and "placing civil engineering majors in the early admission batch and the admission batch for poor students" have even appeared.

However, as time goes to 2023, with the rapid development of AI and the increasing market demand for data centers, the civil engineering major, which has turned from hot to cold, has vaguely ushered in a turning point of becoming hot again.

Liang Wenfeng, Jensen Huang and others need more than just programmers

In May 2026, Jensen Huang said when attending the graduation ceremony of Carnegie Mellon University: "A new industry is being born. No generation has ever entered the world with such powerful tools and such huge opportunities as you do."

"Artificial intelligence gives the world a chance to rebuild. Electricians, plumbers, ironworkers, technicians, construction workers — this is your era."

In his view, the emergence of AI not only greatly reduces the difficulty for people to acquire knowledge, advice and even skills, but also significantly amplifies the advantages of blue-collar jobs.

After all, the demand of manufacturers for data centers is objective, and the current embodied intelligence technology is not enough to deal with a large number of non-standard work and complex scenarios in the physical world.

For this matter, the survey results of Randstad, a human resources company, also indirectly confirm Jensen Huang's remarks. After analyzing millions of recruitment notices, they found that in the past three years, the market demand for construction workers, welders and electricians has increased by 30%, 25% and 18% respectively.

In addition, the Associated General Contractors of America estimates that in 2026 alone, the construction industry will need a net increase of about 349,000 workers to meet the needs of AI and technology companies.

Looking back at Meta's Workforce Academy Program, the reason why it provides free training on skills such as "fiber optic installation" for workers is that data centers are different from traditional commercial and civil buildings. The addition of a large number of precise cooling and heating systems, power facilities and electronic equipment makes enterprises extremely eager for workers who master "cross-domain knowledge".

As for the domestic situation.

The "Intelligent Construction Major", which includes traditional civil engineering knowledge such as Engineering Mechanics and Principles of Structural Design, and adds new knowledge in the fields of computer science and mechanics, has entered the public view as the identity of Civil Engineering 2.0 in the new era.

(Up to now, a total of 230 universities across the country have opened the intelligent construction major. This data comes from "Palm Gaokao" APP.)

In the near future, talents related to electric power and even HVAC may also be involved in this "AI infrastructure construction" wave.

After all, to make AI run, we not only need buildings to place computer rooms, but also places to generate electricity, and people to design different liquid cooling and air cooling heat dissipation solutions.

References:

Beijing Daily Client: DeepSeek Recruits Civil Engineering Talents, Sends a Clear Signal

NetEase Digital: The Major That Fell the Hardest in Chinese Universities, Changed From "The Chosen One" to "One of the Biggest Pitfalls"

STAR Market Daily: You Can Take the Job Right After Graduation! Meta Opens a School to Train Data Center Construction Workers

Sina Tech: AI Infrastructure Boom Explodes Blue-Collar Demand! Jensen Huang Calls on Electricians and Plumbers: Your Era Has Come

Post News: The Admission Information for Master's Students Released by a Professor from Tongji University Sparks Discussion, The University Says: We Will Not Interfere as It Is the Personal Characteristic of the Teacher

This article is from the WeChat Official Account"Those Things on the Internet", the author is Those Things on the Internet, published with authorization from 36Kr.