Later that month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent remarked that he had been to Pittsburgh two times in four weeks – for the summit and the announcement of the U.S. Steel-Nippon Steel merger.
With over $92 billion in deals announced this summer and a bipartisan full court press keeping the city on the minds of decisionmakers in both C-suites and in Washington, this wasn’t by accident.
Pennsylvania’s Winning Playbook:
Bipartisan show of force – Despite some aspects of the Energy Innovation Summit resembling a campaign rally (huge screens reading “The Golden Age of Energy Dominance”), the day had a partisan balance thanks to the involvement of Gov. Josh Shapiro. The partnership between McCormick and Shapiro was cited as a critical ingredient in Amazon Web Services’ $20 billion data center investment – Pennsylvania’s largest private sector win ever.
Energy – Pennsylvania is the nation’s second-largest energy exporter after Texas. And as Governor Shapiro said in July: “I’m an all-of-the-above energy governor that wants to generate more energy here. That positions us uniquely." This point wasn’t lost on Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman.
“It’s hard to walk through the aisles here without someone telling me they have a gigawatt of power available,” Garman told the standing-room-only auditorium at the Energy Innovation Summit. “And I’ll say, great. And they’ll be like… well, in 2032. Speed matters. We need the power now. We will need it then too, but now it does matter.”Trades and Brains – A part of AWS’ investment is setting up a talent pipeline around two data center campuses. Although the Summit was held at Carnegie Mellon, it was CMU President Farnam Jahanian who pointed out “in the best of times only 35% of our population gets a college degree,” underscoring the need for different pathways into the workforce.
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