By Kris Maher | Photographs and Videos by Nate Smallwood for WSJ

PITTSBURGH -- Two months ago, President Trump stood in a cavernous, local U.S. Steel mill heralding a $2 billion investment from buyer Nippon Steel to keep 3,000 steelworkers employed for at least another decade.

He's returning Tuesday to tout a very different Pittsburgh industry, but one also connected to a $2 billion mill overhaul. This one, in the nearby city of Aliquippa, would turn a long-closed mill site into a power plant and data centers to support artificial intelligence.

The two visits frame an economy in a long-running transition. Pittsburgh is still tethered culturally to its steel industry, even though the sector here faded decades ago. Higher-tech ventures, including a burgeoning AI industry, have since become a much bigger source of local jobs.

"AI is something of the future, and it's in our region's best interest to capitalize on it," said Rich Fitzgerald, executive director of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, an economic development group.

Trump will speak at an energy and AI summit at Carnegie Mellon University, which has one of the world's most advanced AI programs just a short drive from the area's remaining U.S. Steel plants. Republican Sen. David McCormick conceived of the summit to help Pittsburgh and the state catch up to other regions in what he called a data-center arms race, including northern Virginia and the Columbus, Ohio, area.

"We haven't been competing adequately," McCormick said in an interview. "For God's sake, Columbus? What's Ohio got on Pennsylvania?"

McCormick's goal is to promote western Pennsylvania's natural gas reserves, electricity resources that can power AI, steel to build data centers and what he described as a workforce skilled in both advanced computing and trades. He said Trump was an easy sell when he asked him to attend last fall and that they discussed the summit again while watching the NCAA wrestling championships in Philadelphia this spring.

The push has bipartisan support. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro also has courted data centers popping up elsewhere in Pennsylvania.

Pittsburgh's industrial image has outlasted its economic transformation. The region once made more steel than anywhere in the world, and that legacy persists, long after most furnaces in western Pennsylvania were shut down. Universities, museums and other cultural institutions still bear the names of past industrialists. The three stars on Pittsburgh Steelers helmets are derived from an iron and steel industry logo.

The region lost half its manufacturing job base in the 80s. But Pittsburgh eventually invested in industries like healthcare, higher education and robotics. It is now a growing tech hub, with 11,000 jobs in computer-systems design and 9,800 more in research and development. About 5,500 iron and steel mill jobs remain.

Earlier this year, local officials who feared missing out on the next technology wave formed an AI Strike Team to try to position Pittsburgh as a global AI hub. Its board includes members from Carnegie Mellon, the University of Pittsburgh, an AI startup, the sheet metal workers union and a venture-capital firm.

The group asked 10 county commissioners to identify sites ready for data center development. Prerequisites included proximity to a natural gas pipeline or land where a power plant could be built. They also sought water access to cool the power-hungry buildings.

Among the sites they picked: the former massive steel mill along the Ohio river in the faded steel town of Aliquippa, which once employed more than 13,000 workers.

Project developer Fezzik Energy, a four-person team, said they aim to start construction later this year on the grass-covered slag heap where the mill once stood. The company said it is in talks with end users who would help privately finance a power plant and data center on more than 100 acres.

Such projects have their share of critics, including environmental groups. The centers suck up enormous amounts of electricity, which can drive up carbon emissions. The Aliquippa site would generate its own power via a proposed 500-megawatt natural gas power plant, enough to power a small city.

"We're concerned about the sheer volume of resources that these facilities are going to be using in our region," said Lauren Posey, with Protect PT, a local environmental group. It's tracking four other data center projects in southwest Pennsylvania, including a $10 billion project to convert a coal-fired power plant to natural gas to fuel data centers.

The data centers also won't come close to replacing steel mills where shift changes once had thousands of employees punching in and out. The sites don't require many workers after they are built, limiting their labor impact.

Still, the Aliquippa project has generated enthusiasm in a suburban city that has lost nearly two thirds of its population since 1960, and where the poverty rate is nearly 20%. It's one of many economically battered communities with abandoned industrial sites in western Pennsylvania.

"I feel hopeful that we're going to be the next big thing," said Dwan Walker, Aliquippa's Democratic mayor. The project is expected to bring in about $95 million in property tax revenue over 10 years to the city of about 9,000.

Aliquippa's mill site is about 30 miles from Pittsburgh's Bakery Square neighborhood, a hub for AI startups clustered around a former Nabisco bakery that cranked out Ritz crackers and Wheat Thins before closing in the late 90s.

AI executives there say they need more computing power to help them process vast amounts of data. Being closer to data centers can lead to quicker processing speeds needed by companies with time-critical applications like national security.

"It doesn't make sense for me to invest $15 million just for myself when 27 other Pittsburgh companies could benefit from the same infrastructure, " said Andrew Moore, chief executive at Lovelace AI, who is supportive of the Aliquippa project. The company analyzes data for national security and financial services.

Chuck Betters, a developer who was born and raised in the area, bought the former Aliquippa mill where his father, older brother and uncles had once worked, for about $900,000 in 1992. He's now a partner with Fezzik Energy on the project. They are also partners at a defunct mill site in Midland, Pa., that they aim to turn into another data center.

Driving the Aliquippa site in his Ford F-350 Super Duty, with the window cracked to flick his cigarette ash, Betters, 75, pointed to a barren tract he spent years clearing.

"Never did I contemplate what the hell all we were going to do," he said. "I don't know much about a data center, but we have everything that they're looking for."

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 12, 2025 05:30 ET (09:30 GMT)

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