Trump and McCormick to announce $70 billion in AI and energy investments for Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Dave McCormick, organizer of the inaugural Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, is set to announce $70 billion in new investments in the state.
One project is set to target Aliquippa, which was once the steelmaking center of the Ohio Valley until it fell on hard times with the closing of the mill. But Aliquippa is looking at a rebirth, with the possible transformation of that site to power the artificial intelligence economy.
"That thing's been sitting empty for close to 50 years of my life," Aliquippa Mayor Dwan Walker said.
Walker remembers his steelworker father walking out of the mill for the last time and sitting on the porch crying the day it closed. Today, the mayor hopes that a technological revolution can bring his city back.
"Being that we were the center of steel, now we can be the center of AI," Walker said. "I don't think, I know it can happen. I know in this day and age, 2025, Aliquippa can be a new tech hub."
Artificial intelligence requires massive amounts of energy and computing capacity, and a local partnership headed by real estate developer Chuck Betters hopes to transform the 89-acre site of the old mill into a massive, multi-billion dollar data processing center, creating thousands of construction jobs, hundreds of permanent ones and generating tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue.
"Large job creation, large tax base, and the comeback of Beaver County from the steel mill days," Betters said.
At Tuesday's summit, the Pittsburgh region will be on display for the heads of the country's largest tech companies, showcasing both the technological innovations being developed here as well as the massive energy resources available to power them.
Data centers will help spawn companies like Pittsburgh's Gecko Robotics, which recently became a unicorn — a company worth more than $1 billion. Founder Jake Loosararian will demonstrate at the summit his AI-powered climbing robots and ask those tech leaders to invest here and help Pittsburgh take the next step.
"We have the biggest leaders in the world in AI and energy coming to this city," Loosararian said. "We need to see investment from those companies into this region -- continue to do so. You'll start to see an ecosystem of companies like Gecko that begin to emerge."
With energy in natural gas and nuclear, empty industrial sites ready for data center development, and a culture of innovation, leaders say the Pittsburgh region is uniquely positioned to be a world leader in AI.
Walker believes that it can bring back Aliquippa's Franklin Avenue.
"More businesses downtown, more strip malls, more access to revenue, that dollar flip two or three times in this community instead of leaving it," Walker said.
If and when the site of the mill is developed, it will begin to merge the region's technological know-how with its vast energy resources, creating a new AI economy that leaders say will benefit everyone.
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