PITTSBURGH — In a room full of business titans and his own Cabinet members, President Donald Trump said the United States must remain the world’s dominant economic power.
“We’re here today because we believe that America’s destiny is to dominate every industry and be the first in every technology,” he said at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit. “That includes being the world’s No. 1 superpower in Artificial Intelligence.”
The event, organized by Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA), brought together powerful CEOs and political leaders to talk about artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, which administration officials said will be a major source of job growth in the future. According to Trump and McCormick, companies announced more than $90 billion in data center, energy, workforce, and AI training projects during the summit.
“The investments being announced this afternoon include more than $56 billion in new energy infrastructure, and more than $36 billion in new data center projects,” Trump said. “And a lot more than that are going to be announced in the coming weeks.”
Organizers said Pennsylvania is a perfect spot to locate AI and data centers because they consume huge amounts of energy, and the state is a top energy producer in the U.S.
Trump seemed to be in a festive mood during his remarks. He spoke about attending college at the University of Pennsylvania. He alleged that his uncle, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski as a student.
But serious business was the order of the day.
Along with Trump and McCormick, Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), White House “crypto czar” David Sacks, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and several other administration officials were in attendance.
On the business side, attendees included Blackstone COO Jon Gray, Alphabet and Google president Ruth Porat, Westinghouse Electric Company interim CEO Dan Sumner, North America’s Building Trades Union Secretary-Treasurer Brandon Bishop, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, and Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods, among others.
“These are truly the biggest investors in the world,” Trump said.
Trump didn’t let the occasion pass without taking a shot at his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, saying he was reversing the previous administration’s energy policy failures.
“Under the last year of Biden, China added 11 times as much power generation capacity as did the United States. That’s under Biden,” the president said. “That’s not under Trump. That’s under sleepy Joe.”
Trump praised coal, an energy source that’s been important in Pennsylvania for generations, as clean and beautiful, saying he ended Biden’s “war” on coal.
Competition with China was another major theme of the day. Sacks predicted that either the U.S. or China would dominate the AI landscape in five years and said that if it’s the latter, “it means we did something very, very wrong.”
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The local focus was strong as well. Trump heaped praise on the Keystone State, which was crucial to his election victories in 2016 and 2024, saying the Commonwealth is reclaiming its industrial heritage and taking a place at the forefront of AI technology.
“Today’s commitments are ensuring that the future is going to be designed, built, and made right here in Pennsylvania, right here in Pittsburgh,” Trump said, “and I have to say, right here in the United States of America.”