US Senator Dave McCormick (R-PA) said on July 15 that more than $90 billion in private-sector investments will boost employment and make Pennsylvania a leading hub for energy, artificial intelligence and innovation. The comments were made during the inaugural Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit.

"As the nation's second largest energy producer and a global nuclear power leader, Pennsylvania is uniquely positioned to deliver the abundant, affordable energy that growing AI and advanced manufacturing sectors demand," McCormick said in a statement.

"Today we are going to follow through on many of the promises to make America energy dominant," he said during the event, which was held at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and livestreamed.

McCormick framed AI infrastructure development as a race with the Chinese Communist Party that the US must win.

"That's why we must build, from natural gas turbines, nuclear reactors to transmission lines, data centers and a skilled workforce which is the key to unlocking the potential of AI," he said.

Developing new gas-fired power plants factored heavily into the strategies discussed by the speakers at the event.

"Today we are talking about $25 billion focused in two areas: one, building data centers in Northeast Pennsylvania ... we've identified several sites for building large data centers ... and also an announcement with a utility here in the state to build a large number of potential [power] generation plants, natural gas," Jon Gray, president and COO of investment firm Blackstone, said.

One of the "exciting" things about the idea is collocating the data centers directly next to the source of power, he said, adding that that is the "special sauce" because building transmission lines and gas pipelines is "really difficult."

Regarding the utility announcement, PPL Corporation and Blackstone Infrastructure said that they have formed a joint venture to build, own and operate new gas-fired, combined-cycle power generation plants to power data centers under long-term energy services agreements, according to a statement.

However, no ESAs with hyperscalers have yet been signed. The plan is to develop front-of-the-meter power generation located above the Marcellus and Utica shale basins that can quickly connect to available gas pipeline capacity in areas of significant data center interest, according to the statement.

PPL owns 51% of the joint venture, with Blackstone Infrastructure owning 49%. The joint venture does not include PPL Electric Utilities or PPL's other regulated subsidiaries.

Technological innovation, investment

Rene Haas, CEO of computing platform Arm and board director of SoftBank, said "I do think power efficiency is going to be key because maybe we get to 10 GW [of power demand], but when you start talking about hundreds of gigawatts, that's beyond what the planet can put together and deliver. So not only is there going to be innovation around data centers," but for data center workloads as well.

"Our intention is to raise $30 billion of capital and raise another associated $100 billion of debt working with the Google's and all the other hyperscalers," Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, said. It is not just building a box but sourcing the power, most of which will be dispatchable gas, he said.

Hopefully, in the future nuclear power will be part of the solution, but in the next five years to be a leader in AI development it is going to have to be done through dispatchable gas and some other decarbonized technology, which will most likely be solar, Fink said.

Regarding decarbonization, ExxonMobil CEO, Darren Woods said that reducing emissions has become politically polarized, "we have said we provide energy but more fundamentally we are in the business of discovering and transforming hydrogen carbon molecules into products that the world needs."

"We do believe you can continue to grow and supply energy and you can reduce emissions, but it's going to take more technology, and we need to get off this black and white thinking that it is either wind and solar or oil and gas, and instead focus on how we better reduce emissions," he said.

He added that Exxon is very focused on meeting demand for data centers with decarbonized natural gas and at the same time capture emissions from power generation and store them safely underground "so that we can supply the power that's needed in AI but with 90% of the emissions associated captured and stored."