EXCLUSIVE: When Sen. David McCormick was growing up in Bloomsburg – at the edge of Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal region – he never envisioned the area being economically revitalized as a linchpin for the cloud computing and AI industries, he said in a Monday interview.
This week, Amazon announced a $20 billion investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure in the form of new data centers, the largest in the commonwealth’s history, according to the eCommerce giant.
McCormick said Amazon’s investment – including the site next to the Susquehanna River nuclear plant in Berwick that is just up U.S. Route 11 from the senator’s hometown – has a “scope and scale [that] is remarkable.”
Nor did many believe that topline Republicans and Democrats in a perennial swing state would see eye-to-eye on much, but Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro echoed McCormick’s sentiment, saying in a statement, “Pennsylvania is competing again.”
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“I’m proud to announce that with Amazon’s commitment of at least $20 billion to build new state-of-the-art data center campuses across our commonwealth, we have secured the largest private sector investment in the history of Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said.
“With this historic announcement, we’re creating opportunity for our workers, generating new revenue for our local communities, and ensuring the future of AI runs right through Pennsylvania,” the governor added in a statement. McCormick, R-Pa., concurred on Monday.
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“I think it’s consistent with what I’ve been saying… Pennsylvania should be the Data Center Mecca: because we’ve got abundant energy, we’ve got these fantastic building trades, skilled workers that can scale – it’s a game of speed,” the senator said.
The first successful oil well was drilled more than 160 years ago in Venango County, and the commonwealth has not looked back in terms of the energy sector, though its share of the oil market has largely moved to the Gulf states.
McCormick said both the Nippon and Amazon deals will save and create tens of thousands of jobs collectively.
The Nippon deal, agreed to last week, will allow Japan’s steel giant to invest in Pennsylvania-based U.S. Steel without outright acquiring the American company.
Fox News Digital asked McCormick about criticisms of data centers, such as in states like West Virginia and Virginia, where some landowners don’t want lines passing through their property, or land sold for the pure benefit of a neighboring state, and concerns about overburdening the current power grid.
“There’s definitely stress on the grid. We need to continue to bring production capacity online,” he said. “We’re going to be dependent on coal, solar, all forms of energy. So we’re going to need to double down on all forms of energy, particularly natural gas, to meet the growing demand.” That plan reflects President Donald Trump’s and Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s vision of an “all of the above approach,” as the secretary told Fox News Digital in a recent interview.
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“But [Pennsylvania] is uniquely positioned to do that because we have such robust energy resources. So I think we should be mindful of it. But I think it’s manageable because of a lot of production capability.”
He added that the so-called “indirect jobs” from such projects are also long-lasting.
Berwick is situated just off Interstate 80 and not far from Interstate 81, which could help lead to a boom in the local economy, including trade, restaurant and hotel jobs.
While just a short drive downriver is the famous “ghost town” of Centralia, and working-class “coal-cracker” communities like Shamokin and Mount Carmel, where the loss of industry has contributed to malaise and a lack of similar work, the Berwick project could breathe new life into an area that greatly needs the boost.
AI writ large has the potential to boost the economies of several areas of Pennsylvania that have or had long been industrial centers, McCormick said.
The Philadelphia shipyard, coal region, and areas around largely rural military installations like Letterkenny, which is near Chambersburg, and Tobyhanna, near Mount Pocono, stand to gain, he said.
The prospect of adding another industry being “on-shored” from China and India is a good thing for Pennsylvania and the country as a whole, he said.
“I think these areas offer the biggest promise as kind of game-changers,” he said.
FOX Business’ Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
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