Pittsburgh weekly roundup: Agility Robotics’ $400M raise; CMU speaks out on cuts; Innovation zone expansion

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This week in Pittsburgh, $3 million in grants to support manufacturing innovations, a local leader reacts to the Department of Education shake-up and more.

Read on for Technical.ly’s weekly roundup of top news in the region.

📰 News Incubator: What else to know

• Local startup Agility Robotics, maker of the humanoid robot Digit, is raising $400 million. The raise would bring Agility’s valuation to $1.75 billion. [The Information]

• The former Homer City Generating Station, located about 50 miles east of Pittsburgh, is set to become the nation’s largest gas-fired power plant. Its seven gas-fired turbines will generate up to 4.5 gigawatts of electricity for on-site data centers. [WESA]

• In an open letter last week, Carnegie Mellon University President Farnam Jahanian addressed the issues with federal funding uncertainty for the first time since the university joined a lawsuit to block National Institutes of Health funding cuts. [WESA/CMU]

•  Zico Kolter, director of the machine learning department at CMU, spoke at an event on AI risks in March, warning that advanced AI systems capable of performing tasks equivalent to human colleagues could emerge by 2030 or sooner. [NEXTPittsburgh]

• Carnegie Mellon’s Scott Institute for Energy Innovation launched a new entrepreneurship award to support energy and climate startups. The award aims to accelerate the transition of CMU cleantech innovations from research to market.[Carnegie Mellon University]

• The Regional Industrial Development Corp. secured approval to expand the Greater Oakland Keystone Innovation Zone, adding a one-mile stretch of Penn Avenue and 20 acres of the Hazelwood Green redevelopment site. The expansion grants tech startups in the zone up to $100,000 in annual tax credits. [Pittsburgh Biz Times]

🗓️ On the Calendar

• Learn about the wide range of STEM careers fueling Pittsburgh’s workforce at the 2025 STEM Summit: Careers in Action on April 4. [Register]

• The Pittsburgh Quantum Institute invites the public to attend the open sessions of its 2025 conference at the Carnegie Science Center on April 9-10. Learn about quantum mechanics and other topics at the educational event. [Attend] 

• Discuss IOS and Mac app development with like-minded individuals at the CocoaHeads Pittsburgh monthly meetup on April 10. [RSVP]

• Meet ambitious women from across industries, share ideas and discover unexpected connections at a networking night for ladies on April 10 at CoHatch Shadyside. [Details here]

• Code & Coffee Pittsburgh is hosting another meetup of its inclusive coding group at Prototype PGH in Oakland on April 12. [More info]