Pittsburgh poised to take the lead in technological revolution, leaders say
President Trump and heads of the nation's tech industry will attend a summit at Carnegie Mellon University next month to discuss Pittsburgh's future in artificial intelligence.
Local stakeholders say the Pittsburgh region has the technological know-how to develop AI, the workers to build it and the massive energy resources needed to power it.
Can Pittsburgh become the country's leader in AI?
Toby Rice, CEO of EQT, said southwestern Pennsylvania is "uniquely positioned to provide a great location for this AI revolution that's taking place across the country."
For years now, CMU and the University of Pittsburgh have spawned local tech companies in computer technology, robotics and more lately AI — with the eye-propping development of autonomous vehicles, robotic dogs, foreign language teaching models and AI-powered robots that climb the walls of oil tanks looking for cracks.
But to take the next step, the companies say the region needs to increase its computing capacity. That means developing data processing centers, which in turn require massive amounts of energy. To that end, the region has abandoned industrial sites on which to build them and the energy to power them, according to Rice.
"We've got energy, we've got the workforce, we've got industrial locations and we've get a large tech community here," Rice said.
There are now plans to transform the recently imploded coal-fired power plant in Homer City into a natural gas-powered, multi-billion-dollar data campus.
And just this month, the company Ardent cut the ribbon for the construction of a new data center in Robinson Township, and there are talks for new centers around the region. Building trade leaders say this could mean tens of thousands of construction jobs and more.
Roger Nasci of Hellbender Inc. said, "We want to produce high-quality jobs with people who run the robots and use robots to build our systems."
Companies like Hellbender are looking to train and hire hundreds of people over the next few years in advanced manufacturing skills to produce their unique products. The company is expanding into a warehouse in Bakery Square, where workers will build and assemble its smart cameras and perception systems.
Joanna Doven heads the AI Strike Team, which has designated a section of Penn Avenue "AI Avenue." The team's mission is to bring the region's assets together to create a new AI economy, which she says will lift all boats.
"Ten years from now, people are going to be coming to Pittsburgh and saying how can we be like Pittsburgh. We are going to be the city that people want to be. And that's already starting to happen, but that's going to happen in a way that none of us can imagine," she said.
Along with the president, invitations to next month's summit have gone to Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI's Sam Altman, as well as the heads of Microsoft and Google. Pittsburgh will be selling itself as the place to be.
