Tuesday is gearing up to be a big day for Pittsburgh. At least, if the local buzz is any indication.
Whether they’re critics or supporters of Carnegie Mellon University’s decision to host an event with the US president on the guest list, people have been saying the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit could shape the region’s future for years to come.
Will it be the biggest day for the city since the G-20 in 2009? Brian Kennedy, the Pittsburgh Technology Council’s senior vice president of operations and government affairs, goes even further.
“When the G20 came to Pittsburgh … they built a big fence around it so nobody could get in,” Kennedy said. “This event is FOR Pittsburgh. It’s not just hosted in Pittsburgh.”
The July 15 event, convened by US Sen. Dave McCormick, is invitation-only and not open to the public. Along with President Donald Trump, the guest list includes Big Tech leaders like OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, as well as energy leaders like the CEOs of ExxonMobil and Shell, according to reporting by Axios.
“This summit is going to bring awareness to our region’s advantage as a powerhouse in the global economic future, which is centered around AI,” Joanna Doven, executive director of the economic development coalition AI Strike Team, told Technical.ly. “And it will lead to job creation.”
The event has also sparked some local backlash. A group of CMU students and faculty created a petition that accuses the university administration of “making a clear stance, politically aligning themselves with the federal government and legitimizing their cuts to research, kidnapping of international students and abuse of power” by hosting the summit.
Yet even petition organizers believe it’ll be a day to remember.
“It is an important event in the sense of historical importance in a lot of ways, like the booming of AI recently, the impact on the environment,” said Jess Vinskus, a petition organizer and graduate student at CMU. “They’re inviting a bunch of energy and AI CEOs. There are going to be consequences for these types of companies and this type of legislation. It’s going to be impactful, regardless of whichever side you are on those issues.”
While the average Pittsburgher might not see the true impact right away, it will become more clear in the near future, suggested Kennedy, of the Tech Council.
“If you were to flash forward three to four years,” Kennedy said, “I think you’re gonna see a bunch of companies located in Pittsburgh that happened because of this particular first contact at Carnegie Mellon.”
Whatever’s discussed, local stakeholders aim to capitalize on the attention
It’s still unclear exactly what the summit will address, but Pennsylvania’s natural gas resources, workforce and research institutions could all be on the table, according to a press release from McCormick’s office, which also pledged to provide Technical.ly more detail.
There will be local representation at the event, according to Kennedy.
“At least 25 members of the Pittsburgh Technology Council will have the opportunity to be showcased there, in a kind of trade show-like environment,” he said, while declining to elucidate further.
The Pittsburgh Robotics Network will be one of the organizations exhibiting, but other “specific names are being kept close to the chest for now,” said Maddi Love, PRN’s director of communications. Shiv Rao, CEO and cofounder of local AI-powered healthtech startup Abridge, is one of the local executives planning to attend, per Will Pegler, Abridge’s senior account executive.
A day before the big summit, innovation ecosystem stakeholders are gathering at the Aurora Innovation headquarters in the Strip District’s Robotics Row for a kickoff event.
“There’s going to be attention on the region,” said Bethany Wallace, communications director at InnovatePGH, “so let’s look at what we can do to amplify what’s happening here because Pittsburgh has become ground zero for AI.”
Dubbed the AI Horizons preview, the Monday event is a partnership between InnovatePGH, the PRN, the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Alliance, the Allegheny Conference on Community Development and the AI Strike Team.
The event, which frames Pittsburgh as a place with “a tech culture that tackles hard problems without the noise” and promises “conversations with founders who traded coastal hype for Pittsburgh’s real-world edge,” will focus on national security, building unicorns in Pittsburgh and energy’s role in the AI economy, with local tech heavyweights like Gecko Robotics and Abridge in attendance.
“This is a moment of national visibility for Pittsburgh’s tech sector.”
Maddi Love, Pittsburgh Robotics Network
“This is a moment of national visibility for Pittsburgh’s tech sector,” said PRN’s Love, and an opportunity to “amplify Pittsburgh’s voice as a national and global epicenter for AI and robotics.”
There was chatter that Gov. Josh Shapiro and Sen. McCormick would attend the kickoff event, but as of Friday that had not been confirmed. Nevertheless, Doven said, the kickoff event coincides with the AI Strike Team’s efforts to launch a new website that will better communicate the region’s strengths for AI investment.
“The reality with July 15 is Senator McCormick has created an action-forcing event that enables economic groups and industry to get organized,” Doven said. “We’ve been working on a strategic marketing and storytelling effort to communicate in one place Pittsburgh’s unique AI advantages.”
Those advantages are physical assets like natural gas and the local workforce, empty industrial sites that could be transformed into data centers, existing industry in Pittsburgh’s innovation districts and of course the world’s top AI school at CMU, according to Doven.
Little university communication on student-faculty backlash
The CMU petition, which had over 1,600 signatures as of Thursday, was delivered to university president Farnam Jahanian on Monday, according to Vinskus, the grad student organizer, who said CMU did not provide a formal response to the community’s concerns.
Asked about the petition, CMU Director of Media Relations Cassia Crogan provided Technical.ly with a prepared statement that did not address the community backlash.
Vinskus claims university administration did not consult CMU’s student government before agreeing to host the summit.
“It seems like they’re making a lot of excuses that are, in my opinion, really dismissive and not taking our concerns to heart, which is really disappointing,” Vinskus said. “They’re saying this will look good for CMU, we’re an AI hub and this is a great opportunity for us, without acknowledging all the terrible things that they’re enabling by holding it.”
Members of the CMU community plan to peacefully protest the event on July 15, according to Vinskus, with an emphasis on safety and avoiding confrontations with law enforcement.
