NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — On Wednesday, Amazon Web Services announced a partnership with some Metro Nashville offices as well as the Nashville Innovation Alliance and several universities in an effort to build up Nashvillians' technical skills related to artificial intelligence and data science.

Nashville Mayor Freddie O'Connell joined executives at the announcement, underscoring the scope of the effort: preparing Tennesseans for thousands of open jobs in the region's fast-moving tech economy.

"[We are] talking about an educational alignment program with employer requirements so students can become really productive very, very quickly," General Manager of Global Education at AWS, Valerie Singer, said. "[They can] have the skills that they need so that when they go into an organization ... they're instantly productive."

Metro officials estimated that there are already more than 8,000 open tech jobs across the Greater Nashville area, and postings are up 35% from last year. Vanderbilt University is among the schools now working with Amazon to build that talent pipeline.

Dr. Jules White, Vanderbilt's Senior Advisor to the Chancellor for generative AI, said the university's new College of Connected Computing will play a central role.

"This College of Connected Computing and the larger vision of what we're doing is really important to that development of the talent ecosystem in Nashville and to continue to attract the huge players that are so important — like Amazon," White said.

The announcement comes as construction moves forward on a 12-megawatt AI data center in North Nashville, which is expected to bring more jobs and investment to the city.

"You kind of see some of these places that get known for tech like Austin — it's another very creative place," White said. "I think Nashville's going to be one of those places, and I think our specialty is going to be in AI."