(The Center Square) – If there’s one phrase it would be impossible to escape in the news this year, it’s artificial intelligence, and Pennsylvania has been at the forefront.
Leaders at the state and national level, academics, and industry insiders have all worked to make the commonwealth a destination of choice for AI innovation. Here’s a review of where they succeeded and where work remains to be done in 2025.
Data Centers
At the center of the AI discussion is the rise of data centers, the facilities built to house the resource-hungry servers that are required to run AI applications. The polarizing constructions have brought billions to the state while drawing controversy from communities concerned about their environmental and aesthetic impact. Throughout the year, legislators held several hearings to try to wrap their arms around the rapidly moving changes.
In April, the state saw its largest ever capital investment of $10 billion to convert the site of a former coal-fired plant into a data center campus powered by natural-gas. The figure was quickly outdone when Amazon announced a $20 billion investment for data centers in Luzerne and Bucks Counties in June.
Big tech’s combined investments of $90 billion was enough to bring President Donald Trump, Republican U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro to Pittsburgh to talk AI along with industry leaders in front of a live audience. The event demonstrated the strength of the bipartisan appetite to cash in on the AI boom while promising to edge ahead of China in the race to develop tomorrow’s technologies.
Power
The energy required to win the AI race is weighty, and experts are expecting an unprecedented demand in Pennsylvania and beyond. For the commonwealth, a net exporter providing about a quarter of the energy on the PJM grid, the “all of the above” energy approach has been critical to earning investments.
Moderates and conservatives, including the Trump administration, have celebrated the state’s vast natural gas resources in the Marcellus Shale. Residents close to fracking in the western region of the state are less optimistic about increased fossil fuel production.
Another controversial energy source is the revitalization of the state’s nuclear industry. Amazon’s data center in Luzerne County will tap directly into the Susquehanna nuclear plant there, while Three Mile Island is being brought back online as Crane Clean Energy Center to power Microsoft’s efforts. The move has garnered mixed reactions from the public, while small modular reactors have caught the attention of legislators looking for safe, clean sources of power.
Promise
What’s the end game for the AI revolution? The technology promises to reshape the landscape across several major Pennsylvania industries, including health care and defense. U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-West Chester, joined her colleagues on the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology in the Commonwealth for its Biotech Across America tour.
The move doubled down on state-level policy agendas to develop the industry, particularly life sciences, which have seen new doors open thanks to AI assistance. Academic hubs Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have rushed to carve out reputations as global centers for AI, from robotics at Carnegie Mellon to policy at University of Pennsylvania.
Pittsburgh’s AI Strike Force hosted the AI Horizons summit where Shapiro and McCormick both spoke about their goals bringing AI to the state and the urgency with which they are approaching the subject. Other industry leaders, like those already using AI in health care, spoke about the latest in their fields.
Policy and Ethics
With great power comes great responsibility. Enter the tough discussions about how to use AI appropriately and what it could spell for the future of humanity. In August, The Center Square sat down with Dr. Michael Kearns to discuss the ethical questions posed by AI.
In October, TCS considered environmental concerns beyond energy demand, speaking with Howard Neukrug, former commissioner and CEO of Philadelphia Water and executive director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Water Center, which launched the Water-AI Center of Excellence in partnership with industry and utility leaders.
State leaders tackled topics like content provenance, or tracing the digital fingerprint of a piece of content back to its original creator, and information literacy in the face of waves of AI-generated images and more.
Organizers fought back against the environmental impact of AI while drawing attention to the job loss expected to follow increased AI utilization. Lawmakers began trying to regulate the ways AI can be employed in health care, while playing catch-up with legislation around data centers.
