$500M RAISE US launches to retrain workers; partners include Amazon and UPS with Fresno sites
RAISE US, a bipartisan nonprofit, starts with more than $500 million to pilot AI-era training with states and large employers. California isn't in the first wave, but the Highway 99 corridor has direct ties through partner companies and likely job categories.
$500M RAISE US launches to retrain workers; partners include Amazon and UPS with Fresno sites
Key Takeaways
- RAISE US launched June 25 with more than $500 million for AI-era training.
- Initial pilots start in Arkansas, Connecticut, Maryland and Utah, not California.
- Partners include Amazon, Microsoft, Anthropic, OpenAI Foundation and Bank of America.
- Additional employers involved include UPS, GM, Eli Lilly, Mastercard, AMD, Cisco and IBM.
- Fresno’s warehousing, trucking and back-office roles are among jobs analysts say AI could reshape.
Five hundred million dollars to keep people working. That is the opening number for RAISE US, a new nonprofit led by former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo with former Indiana governor Eric Holcomb that says it will fund training tied to real hiring and test employer incentives to retrain and redeploy workers. For Central Valley readers, the partner list matters because it includes companies with a footprint here, and because the first round of pilots is outside California which means local leaders will need to ask in if they want in.
The group opens with state partnerships in Arkansas, Connecticut, Maryland and Utah. It is pitching a model that moves money toward training connected to jobs, not just enrollment, and toward corporate tax and policy ideas that keep employees on payrolls during transitions. If those pilots show a benefit, the money could move toward other states on a defined timeline, the organization said, though no dates yet.
Why this could hit the 99 corridor
Look at Fresno County’s mix of employers and you see immediate exposure. Amazon operates a major fulfillment center in southwest Fresno, UPS runs facilities that feed local delivery routes, and the corridor’s logistics, distribution and cold storage operators automate quickly when the math works. Those are exactly the categories economists flag as early adopters of AI scheduling, routing and document workflows, with warehouse picking and back-office claims work next if unit economics hold.
That means the first signal for workers here won’t be a pink slip, it will be a new dashboard at work that changes how tasks get assigned. Community colleges from Fresno City College to Reedley already run short-format credentials for logistics and industrial automation, but the Valley’s gap is scale and guaranteed placement. RAISE US says it wants training tied to hiring outcomes, not just class hours, which is the right metric if the dollars are serious.
Who is at the table
RAISE US lists Amazon, Microsoft, Anthropic, the OpenAI Foundation and Bank of America as anchor partners, with UPS, General Motors, Eli Lilly, Mastercard, AMD, Cisco and IBM also involved. The advisory board includes former House Speaker Paul Ryan, investor Stephen Schwarzman, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and economists David Autor, Erik Brynjolfsson and Raj Chetty. The company mix suggests programs that span hourly operations, customer support and office roles, not only software jobs in the Bay Area.
Analysts keep publishing big numbers on disruption risk, including estimates that up to half of U.S. jobs will be reshaped within a few years, and tens of millions could be eliminated or reclassified. Those figures vary by method, and the details matter for regions like ours where logistics and food processing dominate, since those sectors invest on thin margins.
What this means locally, near term
California isn’t in the first wave. So expect two tracks here: employers linked to the coalition may import playbooks from those pilot states into Valley facilities without waiting for Sacramento, and local institutions will try to align around programs that show credible placement data. If RAISE US opens a California round, the obvious test beds are along Highway 99 where Amazon, UPS and their vendors can move headcount quickly across shifts.
A small thing, but telling. There’s a faint diesel smell in the loading bays off South Willow most mornings. If the money behind this effort follows the jobs that generate it, the change will show up there first. In how routes get built, and who keeps the scanner.
Central Valley AI is produced by the CVAI Newsdesk team and developed by Kaweah Tech, a regional firm that builds, deploys, and integrates AI solutions for businesses across California's Central Valley.