Long-Term Strategies (2025-2035)

Three mutually reinforcing priorities anchor Pennsylvania’s long-term strategies to 2035: Scale Commercialization and Technology Leadership, Modernize Energy Systems for Compute Resilience, and Build and Sustain Talent Pipelines. Together, these priorities chart a path for the commonwealth to become a national leader in AI-driven energy transformation and a global hub for technology leadership.

What makes this moment unique in Pennsylvania is the convergence of unprecedented funding, an influx of people and institutions eager to engage, and broad alignment among leaders who want to make this work. Pennsylvania has the chance to capitalize on this spotlight through pilots that connect R&D with industry, demonstrating how complex real-world challenges in energy, infrastructure, and AI can be solved in ways that translate to other applications.

At the same time, delays in permitting, grid interconnections, or talent readiness could redirect investment to faster-moving peers. This realization makes coordinated near-term action essential. Pennsylvania’s strengths, including world-class research universities, a strong manufacturing base, and its position as a net exporter of energy, ground these strategies. They align these assets toward a technology-anchored economy. This roadmap outlines the goals, enablers, and coordinated actions required across regions, sectors, and institutions to ensure the benefits of this transformation reach communities statewide.

Pennsylvania has long been a leader in research and development, with seven R1 research universities and a track record of innovation in fields like artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, and energy. Yet the state has historically struggled to commercialize research at the same rate as peer states, leaving value on the table as ideas too often remain in labs rather than reaching markets. To close this gap, Pennsylvania must pursue responsible commercialization, ensuring incentives are tied to long-term commitments such as community benefits, sustained operations, and investment in new generation capacity. This challenge is not new, but the uniqueness of the current moment makes it more important than ever to solve. There is a surge of attention, resources, and commitment from individuals and organizations across sectors that are determined to bridge this gap. The convergence of federal priorities, private capital, and strong institutional assets means Pennsylvania has a window to finally accelerate commercialization at scale.

By 2035, Pennsylvania will be recognized globally for leadership in artificial intelligence and nationally for transforming the energy sector through AI. The state’s seven R1 research universities, including Carnegie Mellon University, a pioneer in AI, will serve as powerful engines for translating cutting-edge research into market-ready solutions. Pennsylvania’s long-standing manufacturing base will provide the practical know-how, supply chain depth, and production capacity to move innovations from lab to large-scale deployment.

To make this shift, Pennsylvania will position itself as a national hub for AI commercialization by strengthening IP-to-market programs, expanding tech transfer capacity, and supporting startups through targeted incentives, seed capital, and industry partnerships. Structured commercialization programs will require clear market pathways for funded research, competitive grants that reward industry–university partnerships, and investment tools that recycle returns from successful ventures into new innovations.

AI and automation pilot testbeds in energy, defense, logistics, and manufacturing will be launched through public–private partnerships to validate new technologies, attract private capital, and shorten time to market. Regional AI Activation Corridors will anchor this work, integrating broadband, co-located firm energy from an all-of-the-above generation strategy, and talent pipelines, supported by coordinated permitting and infrastructure planning. Incentives will be structured to avoid a race to the bottom, ensuring data centers and commercialization projects deliver lasting value rather than short-term wins.

Through structured collaboration with PJM and neighboring states, Pennsylvania will export homegrown technology and share firm energy capacity, ensuring that commercialization success is matched by the ability to scale. This combination of targeted programs, regional hubs, and cross-border coordination will create a thriving commercialization ecosystem where breakthroughs in energy technology, data infrastructure, and AI are conceived, developed, tested, and built in Pennsylvania to be exported to the nation and the world.

Pennsylvania has long been an energy powerhouse, serving as a net exporter of electricity and a leader in coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy generation. That history has made energy a cornerstone of the state’s economy and a source of competitive advantage. Yet the demands of the AI era, with rapid growth in data centers, advanced manufacturing, and other high-load industries, present a new test of leadership. The costs of rapid load growth and infrastructure upgrades could fall disproportionately on consumers if not carefully managed, making fairness and affordability central to this strategy.

The scale and speed of expected demand means Pennsylvania must not only continue as an energy exporter but also lead in building a modernized energy system that can deliver resilience, reliability, and adaptability. At the same time, the opportunity is not only to avoid higher costs for customers but also to ride the wave of AI-driven economic growth. If Pennsylvania leans into its energy legacy and strengths, the state can position itself to capture decades of regional development, job creation, and long-term competitiveness. The risk of inaction is that costs rise and opportunities flow elsewhere; the benefit of bold action is that Pennsylvania builds a modernized energy system that supports both affordability and growth.

The moment is now to invest in comprehensive energy transformation. This investment means upgrading grid infrastructure, modernizing transmission and distribution systems, and streamlining permitting processes to accelerate new projects. It also means deploying scalable generation through an all-of-the-above energy approach that leans into best available technologies (e.g., including natural gas with carbon capture and storage, small modular reactors, grid-scale storage). Priority should be placed on reliable and flexible power sources that can balance variable demand and ensure sufficient capacity to serve large-scale loads.

Artificial intelligence will be integrated into grid management and operations to provide real-time forecasting, predictive maintenance, and advanced infrastructure modeling. These AI tools will help optimize energy distribution, accelerate project deployment, and strengthen asset resilience. Monitoring compute efficiency trends will ensure that infrastructure investments align with actual demand, avoiding costly overbuild. Resilience planning will account for rapid changes in technology such as advances in chip design, quantum computing, and AI algorithm efficiency that could shift energy requirements.

Three to five Regional AI Activation corridors will anchor around infrastructure that can maximize access to water, available land, and existing infrastructure such as brownfield industrial sites or vacated educational campuses. These regions will integrate energy, water, and broadband to ensure benefits are shared between rural and urban communities.

Pennsylvania will also deepen coordination with PJM and regional utilities to reform interconnection processes, shorten timelines for new energy projects, and create a transparent framework for high-load interconnections. By pairing AI-driven grid optimization with targeted siting strategies and co-locating generation, storage, and data infrastructure, Pennsylvania can distinguish itself from neighboring states. Given Pennsylvania’s status as a deregulated utility state that separates generation from transmission and distribution, where generation is financed at developer risk, creative approaches such as conditional incentives, grants, or low-cost financing will be necessary to compete with vertically integrated states that can build more easily and rate-base new capacity. Pennsylvania will also work with PJM and utilities to standardize data center forecasting and demand reporting to avoid overbuilding or double-counting across state lines.

Through this coordinated approach, Pennsylvania will not only sustain its role as an energy exporter but will also create a modernized energy system that powers AI-era growth. By reframing energy as both a resilience challenge and an engine of economic development, the state can ensure affordability for customers, capture new investment, and strengthen its long-term leadership.

Pennsylvania’s ability to lead in modern energy systems, data infrastructure, and AI commercialization will depend on the depth and breadth of its talent base. Yet the state faces a pressing challenge: population decline, an aging workforce, and a younger generation with limited exposure to emerging careers in energy, data, and AI, data. Without decisive action, Pennsylvania risks falling behind in filling critical roles just as new industries are scaling. Utilities must prepare for a wave of retirements, while the trades must expand training capacity quickly. Younger workers are seeking different career pathways but often lack clear entry points into technology-driven fields.

At the same time, Pennsylvania’s strong manufacturing heritage, combined with a high concentration of universities and research institutions, creates a unique foundation for a world-class talent strategy. The roadmap will leverage these assets to treat talent as a primary competitive advantage, ensuring that career opportunities are broadly accessible and equitably distributed. A coordinated statewide public education effort will help residents understand the role of AI and data centers, ensuring communities see benefits in addition to disruption.

The roadmap will address talent strategies across energy, data centers, AI, manufacturing, and construction trades, while ensuring that opportunities are broadly distributed rather than concentrated among the same pool of workers. These strategies include developing workforce frameworks, the blueprints that connect education and training to job readiness and long-term career growth in a targeted sector, and apprenticeships. These frameworks will be developed in the energy and data center sectors, expanding early-exposure career and technical education pathways and dual enrollment options. They will prioritize rural and distressed communities for targeted job training and mobility support linked to data center siting and AI deployment. Future talent strategies should also set clear disadvantaged community engagement targets, ensuring projects contribute to equitable growth, similar to models in New York’s renewable industry. Mechanisms to project labor demand will be created so training providers can scale with confidence, avoiding undertraining or overtraining.

A coordinated approach will focus on reskilling current workers, attracting in-migration from other states, and retaining graduates from Pennsylvania’s universities and technical schools. Decisive actions will include conducting talent demand studies, assessing current pipelines, and developing a talent readiness index to track progress. Partnerships will be critical and will include universities, vocational and technical schools with sufficient training capacity, trades, unions, and industry groups. The state will also strengthen its innovation ecosystem to connect training programs directly to high-value projects and employers.

By 2035, measurable outcomes will include the number of trained workers in energy-related and AI fields, the percentage of positions filled by Pennsylvania residents, and population growth in targeted skill areas. Addressing challenges such as population decline, skills gaps, and competition from other states will require coordinated action and sustained investment, but the convergence of energy, data, and AI growth provides Pennsylvania with a unique chance to build a resilient talent strategy that secures its competitive edge for decades to come