A bipartisan slate of politicians joined President Donald Trump in Pittsburgh Tuesday afternoon to herald Pennsylvania’s role in powering the nation's artificial intelligence boom, with more than $90B in new facilities on the table.
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Trump and U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, a Republican representing Pennsylvania, announced a total of $92B in AI and energy investments across the commonwealth during the inaugural Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit at Carnegie Mellon University.
“I think we have a true golden age for America. And we’ve been showing it, and it truly is the hottest country anywhere in the world,” Trump said at the event, according to the Associated Press. “I’m honored to be in Pennsylvania, and I’m honored to be in Pittsburgh. And you’re going to see some real action here. So get ready.”
All told, Trump and McCormick announced investments totaling $36B for data center projects and another $56B for energy projects, Seeking Alpha reported.
The summit comes after Google and Brookfield shared plans to invest $3B in two hydroelectric plants at Holtwood and Safe Harbor in Lancaster County, part of Google’s broader $25B nationwide data center infrastructure push.
“Our partnership with Google demonstrates the critical role that hydropower can play in helping hyperscale customers meet their energy goals,” Brookfield Asset Management President Connor Teskey said in a press release.
“Delivering power at scale and from a range of sources will be required to meet the growing electricity demands from digitalization and artificial intelligence.”
Blackstone President John Gray is also announced a $25B investment in data center and energy infrastructure in Northeast Pennsylvania, the AP reported. Frontier Group unveiled plans to turn the former Bruce Mansfield coal-fired power plant in western Pennsylvania into a new natural gas-fired plant, while AI cloud provider CoreWeave announced it would funnel $6B into a data center in south-central Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro attended Tuesday's event, as did a who's who of big-name executives. The guest list included ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.
The summit will “showcase all that is great about our Commonwealth and will spotlight incredible investments that will fuel good-paying jobs, energy independence, and the AI revolution,” McCormick said in a tweet.
Pennsylvania isn’t the only Mid-Atlantic state benefiting from the data center rush.
Entities associated with Starwood Capital Group and PBF Energy have proposed building a 6M SF data center on 580 acres in New Castle County, Delaware, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported.
The project, slated to bring 900 permanent jobs to the state, would be one of the largest data centers in the country.
UPDATE, JULY 15, 6:23 ET: This story has been updated with comments from President Donald Trump and additional investment announcements made at the summit.
