Trump to unveil $90 billion investment in AI, energy

PITTSBURGH — President Trump is set to speak at a major innovation conference in Pennsylvania on Tuesday afternoon to unveil $90 billion in private-sector investments meant to spur the state’s energy production and US artificial intelligence industry.

Trump, who won the Rust Belt swing state on Nov. 5 just months after surviving an assassination attempt outside Steel City, will champion more than a dozen corporate pledges topping $1 billion that were compiled by Sen. Dave McCormick.

“We’re going to Pittsburgh,” the president told reporters Tuesday. “We have tremendous investments being made.”

McCormick (R-Pa.) is former hedge fund CEO and enlisted the corporate coalition with a goal of transforming Pennsylvania into an AI hub while making it an even bigger energy producer — moving it away from its post-industrial reputation to compete with tech-heavy regions such as northern Virginia.

The Inaugural Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit is being held at Carnegie Mellon University, where investment giant Blackstone will unveil a $25 billion investment to create AI data centers and power plants specifically in Northeast Pennsylvania, according to a release from McCormick’s office.

Google, meanwhile, will commit $25 billion to build out artificial intelligence infrastructure and data centers across the US over two years, plus another $3 billion to refurbish two hydroelectric power plants in Pennsylvania to serve regional AI data centers.

The company First Energy will pledge $15 billion to boost electrical grid power distribution and the firm Homer City Redevelopment will agree to buy $15 billion of locally pumped natural gas for a 1,000-man power plant in the rural area of western Pennsylvania.

PA Data Center Partners and Powerhouse Data Centers is committing to a $15 billion three-campus data center hub near Carlisle in south-central Pennsylvania and AI cloud firm CoreWeave is putting $6 billion into a new data center in Lancaster in the southeast of the state.

PPL Corporation is putting $6.8 billion toward grid capacity improvement and Capital Power is putting $3 billion toward expanding a gas facility, McCormick’s office said.

“Pennsylvania is uniquely positioned to deliver the abundant, affordable energy that growing AI and advanced manufacturing sectors demand,” the senator said in a 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.”

“I am proud to partner with President Trump and the business leaders here today to drive a new era of industrial growth that helps make America energy dominant while creating jobs and opportunities for working families across Pennsylvania.”

Pennsylvania already is a major energy producer due to a boom in fracking for natural gas and has many top universities that train tech pioneers, including Carnegie Mellon in the west and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, of which Elon Musk is an alum.

McCormick’s push comes as electric providers are in the process of transecting western Maryland with power lines to feed Virginia’s data centers.

The new package is in line with the president’s push to make America the leader in AI innovation, particularly over China. Trump signed an executive order in January ordering the government to remove policies that act as barriers to further development.

Amazon previously announced a $20 billion investment package into Pennsylvania data centers and a $14 billion partnership between US Steel and Nippon Steel to surge steel production in the state.