When President Donald Trump announced more than $90 billion in investments Tuesday to supercharge artificial intelligence, he laid out a vision for how the technology revolution would be fueled: “Maybe nuclear, maybe gas, maybe coal.”
But, he added, “they won’t be powered by wind, because it doesn’t work.”
Trump’s Pennsylvania speech — and a slew of linked announcements — underscore how his administration views the AI boom as working hand-in-hand with an energy agenda that relies on fossil fuels and nuclear power.
The energy summit at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University also enabled administration officials, tech companies and energy executives to detail their plans for building large data centers and power projects that could reshape the grid in one of the largest battleground states. The new initiatives include Google’s $25 billion effort to support AI infrastructure in PJM Interconnection, the nation’s largest electricity market, as well as a partnership between Blackstone and PPL to construct and operate new gas plants.
“Remaining the world’s leader in AI will require an enormous increase in energy production,” Trump said, highlighting the “massive build-out of physical infrastructure” in the state.
The Pittsburgh event, organized by Pennsylvania Sen. David McCormick (R), came before next week’s scheduled release of an administration action plan on AI. Administration officials used the opportunity to tout Trump’s efforts to ease pollution limits for fossil fuel power plants and keep such power on the electric grid — while emphasizing the role that Pennsylvania’s gas industry could play.
“Pennsylvania’s natural gas production could ramp up tremendously fast, and Pennsylvania could lead the world in AI and reshoring manufacturing,” said Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
Besides Wright, the summit included remarks from McCormick, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, White House AI czar David Sacks, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) and former Energy Secretary Rick Perry. Leaders of large technology and energy companies also spoke, including Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods; BlackRock CEO Larry Fink; Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman; Brookfield Asset Management CEO Bruce Flatt; and Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer at Google.
Reshaping Pennsylvania’s grid
McCormick released a list of related announcements Tuesday to build out AI in Pennsylvania, including $3 billion from Capital Power to expand a gas plant, $15 billion from FirstEnergy to expand and fortify the grid, and $3.2 billion from Frontier Group to turn a coal plant into a gas generator in Shippingport.
Among the largest investments was from Blackstone, which announced its managed funds would spend more than $25 billion to support AI infrastructure in Pennsylvania and “catalyze” an additional $60 billion. The company inked a deal with PPL to forge long-term contracts to build and operate gas plants near the Marcellus and Utica shale basins, where power can connect to pipelines.
“By co-locating data centers next to the natural gas, we eliminate the enormous cost and time delays with these projects,” Jon Gray, president and chief operating officer at Blackstone, said while speaking on a panel with Trump.
The companies said they had secured multiple plots of land in the state, but have not yet signed long-term contracts with large technology companies to buy the power.
QTS, a large data center operator backed by Blackstone, said it has secured multiple sites in northeastern Pennsylvania to operate data centers, and plans to issue a request for information to spur other communities to build AI facilities.
The company estimated 6,000 jobs would be created over 10 years from its AI efforts. Blackstone said it expected construction to begin on the projects by the end of 2028, depending on permits and utility approvals.
Another large investment tied to the summit came from Google, which said it plans to spend more than $25 billion on data center and AI infrastructure across the PJM region, including in Pennsylvania. The company did not immediately detail which power sources would be tied to the investment.
Google also agreed to buy as much as 3,000 megawatts of hydropower from Brookfield Asset Management in what the company said was the world’s largest corporate hydroelectricity deal. Under the 20-year agreement, Google will initially invest more than $3 billion to buy power from Brookfield’s Holtwood and Safe Harbor hydropower facilities on the Susquehanna River, roughly 77 miles west of Philadelphia. The facilities are being relicensed, the companies said.
The plan helps ensure “clean energy supply in the PJM region where we operate,” said Amanda Peterson Corio, head of data center energy at Google. PJM has said that it is facing potential electricity shortages in coming years as coal and gas plants retire and AI demand surges.
Under the agreement with Brookfield, Google said it could obtain power from additional “hydroelectric assets that will be relicensed, overhauled, or upgraded to extend the asset’s useful life.” The companies said they would initially focus on PJM and the Midwest electricity markets, but would look to expand to other parts of the country.
Other announced deals Tuesday include a plan from CoreWeave to build a $6 billion data center in Lancaster that would be one of the largest such facilities in the state and commitments from Constellation Energy to spend billions of dollars onnuclear projects in Pennsylvania. Enbridge said it would spend $1 billion to expand its pipeline network into the state.
Permitting push
The summit speakers repeatedly pushed for faster permitting of projects.
If permitting changes in Congress don’t happen this year, “it’s not going to happen for another generation,” said Brendan Bechtel, CEO of construction contractor Bechtel, adding that “it is the single biggest thing that could help enable” an AI build-out.
Hundreds of large projects are currently in the federal permitting process, he said, and it takes about five years to get approvals.
“It really has to be done in a bipartisan way,” he said.
Burgum said the role of the White House’s National Energy Dominance Council, which he leads with Wright, is partly to help developers navigate the federal permitting process. He compared the council to state economic development teams that work with companies to bring in local investments.
To developers looking to build a data center or a pipeline, “we’re here to help,” he said of the council, which was created by Trump.
Wright said DOE is weighing roughly 300 responses from developers interested in building data centers on federal land. Earlier this year, DOE called for companies to submit plans to build AI infrastructure at 16 federal sites, including the national labs.
Other panelists called for more workforce programs to ensure there are enough workers to construct AI infrastructure.
“We’re going to have shortages of electricians,” said Fink of BlackRock. AI is going to require a “rethink” of the training of the workforce, he said.
Google announced a program Tuesday to train workers and small businesses in how to use AI, called “AI Works for America.” Porat said the initiative would offer free AI training to small businesses across Pennsylvania.
Rejecting clean energy
The summit was the latest event tying the administration’s energy agenda to the AI boom.
A Department of Energy reportreleased last year said the power needs from data centers could as much as triple between 2023 and 2028. Other estimates have said the U.S. will need to double the pace of new energy generation by the end of the decade to meet growing demand.
The Trump administration has repeatedly made clear that it does not think wind and solar power can fill that demand, instead saying that coal, gas, and emerging technologies like advanced nuclear or geothermal are necessary. Speaking Tuesday, Trump hammered wind power as an “intermittent” resource that wouldn’t work for data centers.
Instead, Trump said, “we brought coal back” and reiterated his campaign slogan of “drill, baby, drill” to reference western Pennsylvania’s natural gas resources. The Republican megalaw signed by Trump this month also slashes tax credits for wind and solar construction.
Supporters of wind and solar power say that cutting the credits will only backfire on Trump’s agenda. They often note that solar makes up more than half of new capacity on the grid this year.
Cutting solar and wind credits would “destabilize our energy future, and weaken the very industries that power our economy and strengthen our national security,” Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, said earlier this month.
Julia Kortrey, deputy state policy director for the environmental group Evergreen Action, said in a statement Tuesday that Trump and McCormick “just cut off their cheapest, fastest tool to add new generation to the grid.”
“Slashing clean energy programs while supercharging demand with new data centers will drive up costs and worsen grid stability in a region already grappling with mounting price hikes,” said Kortrey. “You can’t claim to build the grid of the future while tearing down the very tools needed to power it.”
Trump’s appearance was met with protests from CMU students and faculty who said the university shouldn’t platform an administration that has made cuts to federal science funding and opposed clean energy support. A petition submitted to CMU administrators last week signed by nearly 1,500 students, staff and alumni said that by hosting the summit, “at which major fossil fuel, oil, and AI executives, along with Donald Trump himself, will be present, CMU cannot claim to defend sustainability, freedom of speech, or democracy in good faith.”
Carrie McDonough, an associate professor in CMU’s Department of Chemistry, said in an interview that the summit presented a “short-term” vision for powering AI, one that stood in opposition to the development of clean energy resources at the university.
“When you see the energy needs of AI, it’s clearly something that we need to be looking at alternative sources of energy if we want to make it sustainable for the future,” said McDonough, who co-authored an op-ed objecting to the summit. “Then you have the juxtaposition of these people being invited from the fossil fuel industries, Trump saying things like ‘drill, baby, drill’ and McCormick clearly wanting to increase fracking.”
Pennsylvania has been at the center of several major AI announcements this year as large technology companies search for power. In June, Amazon announced it would spend $20 billion to build out AI infrastructure in Pennsylvania.
In April, developers said the Homer City Generating Station — previously the state’s largest coal plant — would be part of a $10 billion data center campus powered by natural gas.
