The work came home: How local expertise is helping build AI infrastructure at Project Jupiter

Doña Ana County, New Mexico-Sep 1, 2026

For nearly 20 years, Angel Velasquez has gone where the work is.

The southern New Mexico pipefitter has worked on refineries, power plants, and other major infrastructure projects, sometimes taking jobs 12 hours from home.

Before Project Jupiter, Angel hadn't worked close to home in six or seven years. His last local job lasted only a few months.

Angel's skills were here. The work lived somewhere else.

Now, Angel is seven months into helping build Project Jupiter, Oracle's AI data center campus in Doña Ana County. And, while the technology that will eventually operate there is new, its future home depends on skills it took Angel nearly two decades to hone.

Pipefitting, he says, is a craft.

"A lot of math," is how he describes the job. It also takes judgment and the experience to know how to solve problems when plans become physical infrastructure.

On Project Jupiter, Angel's job includes organizing work and running a crew, and he recently earned a promotion. He also teaches people who are newer to the trade, much as experienced tradespeople once taught him.

"I love to see other people grow up in the craft," he says.

The enormous computing infrastructure that will eventually operate at Project Jupiter first has to become a physical thing through the work of skilled tradespeople: pipefitters, welders, plumbers, electricians, and heavy-equipment operators.

Angel is one of the thousands of people already helping bring the project to life. To date, more than 2,700 constructions workers were working onsite, including nearly 700 New Mexico residents.

Angel and his crew get started at 6:00 a.m. and work until 4:30 six days a week. But now, when the shift ends, he heads home.

After years on the road, Angel talks about the joy of working in his hometown and being with his family, where the rewards are simple: "waking up with my wife every day and being with the kids and grandkids."

He sees other local tradespeople getting the same chance to work closer to home and has helped friends find their way onto the project. Around town, he has noticed more people shopping in local stores and busier restaurants. And, when people hear where he works, one question comes up frequently: Are they hiring?

Angel hopes some of that interest will bring younger people into the skilled trades. He enjoys working with people newer to pipefitting, and Project Jupiter, he points out, requires many crafts, not just his own.

"You'll work hard and see the results of what you've accomplished," Angel says. "It's good, honest work."

After nearly two decades in the trade, Angel measures some of the reward in seeing finished projects become part of the landscape. He takes pride in passing by a project he worked on and saying, "I helped build that."

When Angel arrived at Project Jupiter, much of the site was still dirt. Now, he watches the structures taking shape.

Someday, he says, he'll proudly show them to his grandkids.