Big tech companies are pledging more multibillion-dollar investments in Pennsylvania, this time to the tune of $90 billion.
President Donald Trump and Senator Dave McCormick today announced a slew of private-sector initiatives in the commonwealth at the inaugural Energy and Innovation Summit at Carnegie Mellon University.
“This summit is about catalyzing, among other things, $90 billion of investment and tens of thousands of jobs in Pennsylvania,” McCormick said during opening remarks.
It’s now the largest corporate investment in commonwealth history, he said, dwarfing the recent $20 billion from Amazon. McCormick’s office did not respond to multiple requests from Technical.ly to comment on the summit.
High-profile tech leaders announce major investments
The event featured a stacked guest list of top tech and political officials. Alongside Trump and McCormick, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro was also in attendance.
Top CEOs such as Matt Garman of Amazon Web Services, Alex Karp of Palantir, Dario Amodei of Anthropic and Ruth Porat of Google were also there. Plus, Gecko Robotics CEO Jake Loosararian and Carnegie Mellon University President Farnam Jahanian represented Pittsburgh’s innovation scene.
View details of what each company announced
The AI frontier company committed $1 million over three years to support the PicoCTF program that provides cybersecurity education to middle and high school students, and announced $1 million over three years to support energy research at Carnegie Mellon University.
The asset management firm pledged $25 billion to build multiple data centers in Northeastern Pennsylvania and a number of natural gas power plants to support those developments. The investment is expected to create 6,000 temporary construction jobs and 3,000 permanent jobs.
The tech giant and the investment firm pleged $3 billion to upgrade two Pennsylvania hydropower plants. Google also pledged a $25 billion regional spend on data centers and AI infrastructure and said its new “AI Works for Pennsylvania” initiative will offer free AI training, support for small businesses and workforce development programs.
The power generation company said it will invest $3 billion over the next decade to upgrade and expand a gas facility in Shamokin Dam, aiming to generate 30 fulltime jobs.
The sustainable energy company committed $2.4 billion to upgrade the Limerick nuclear power plant, which it anticipates will create 3,000 jobs per year.
The AI cloud-computing startup announced a $6 billion investment to develop a 300-megawatt data center in Lancaster. The new data center could bring about 600 temporary construction jobs and 175 full-time operational jobs.
The investment firm announced a $5 billion plan to develop a data center at the York II Energy Center in Peach Bottom Township, saying it will bring 2,500 temporary construction jobs.
The energy infrastructure company pledged $1 billion to expand its gas pipelines into Pennsylvania, with projects to be announced within the next 18 months.
The multinational energy company announced an investment of $1.6 billion to boost natural gas production at its Pennsylvania facilities.
The Ohio-based utility company pledged $15 billion to upgrade power distribution and grid infrastructure across 56 Pennsylvania counties. In partnership with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, it is also planning to expand its apprenticeship program.
The New York-based real estate developer announced plans to invest $3.2 billion to transform the former Bruce Mansfield coal power plant into a natural gas power station in Shippingport, touting 15,000 temporary construction jobs and over 300 permanent jobs.
The energy equipment manufacturer announced plans to invest up to $100 million into its factory in Charleroi, Washington County, to expand its production of critical equipment for the electrical grid and power plants, possibly creating 250 new jobs.
The renewable energy LLC, created to revitalize the former Homer City coal generating station in Indiana County, announced plans to buy $15 billion worth of Pennsylvania natural gas to power four gigawatts of power generation, creating 1,000 onsite jobs and 10,000 construction jobs.
The social media and tech behemoth is pledging $2.5 million toward a partnership with CMU’s Schwartz Center for Entrepreneurship to support rural startups and train small businesses through community accelerator programs.
The two data center development companies announced a $15 billion three-campus data center hub near Carlisle.
The Allentown-based energy and utility holding company pledged $6.8 billion by 2028 to expand grid capacity and modernize transmission to support data center demand. It also announced a joint venture with Blackstone to develop and operate new gas generation. The companies say these could bring 3,400 new jobs to Pennsylvania.
The Canadian energy company announced plans to invest $400 million to modernize its gas pipeline network in Pennsylvania.
The Cranberry-headquartered nuclear power company announced efforts to have 10 new nuclear power plant reactors under construction by 2030.
Why Pennsylvania, and why now?
Public interest and private investment in data centers are surging nationwide, and Pennsylvania is quickly becoming a key player.
Data centers are facilities that store and process the massive amounts of data we generate online every day, and they require a lot of energy to do it. With the boom in artificial intelligence, the demand for data centers that can handle the complex computations has grown significantly.
In Pennsylvania, Amazon recently pledged to spend $20 billion to build out data centers that would create at least 1,250 high-paying tech jobs. At the time, the commonwealth also committed $10 million to workforce development efforts.
Google selected Luzerne and Bucks Counties for its first sites, regions known for their strong energy production.
“[AI and cloud computing] is a transformative technology for enterprise, for innovation, and it needs a lot of power at a lot of data centers to make that realization happen,” CEO of Amazon Web Services Matt Garman said at the summit event. “We looked for places where that investment was possible and Pennsylvania rose to the challenge.”
There’s bipartisan support for bringing more energy and data center investment to Pennsylvania. Shapiro and McCormick sat down together at the summit to discuss why Pennsylvania is primed for this type of investment.
“This is a global race for both energy dominance and AI dominance,” Shapiro said during the summit panel, “and we need homegrown Pennsylvanians to be doing this work, and we need investment from all across the country and all across the globe.”
Pennsylvania’s access to energy, especially nuclear and natural gas, and skilled labor were a main focus of the bipartisan panel, which has been a central theme for the entire event.
“Pennsylvania is uniquely positioned to deliver the abundant, affordable energy that growing AI and advanced manufacturing sectors demand,” McCormick said in a prepared statement. “We have the skilled workforce to build and operate this critical infrastructure, world-class universities driving innovation and strategic proximity to over half the country’s population.”
