"Pennsylvania is a state of many firsts: It was the nation's first capital, the " birthplace of oil production," home to " America's first superhighway," and the state that monopolized the production of steel in the 20th century. More recently, it has been positioned as one of the leading states in "AI readiness," a term that loosely refers to how equipped companies and governments are to adopt and integrate AI into their systems and daily operations."
"Our team was in Pennsylvania to collect data for our ongoing research on data centers. Ana had recently completed her dissertation about industrial development in Oregon's Columbia River Basin from the 1930s to the data centers of today; Cella grew up in central Pennsylvania and is currently studying the labor and community impacts of AI as a PhD student at Carnegie Mellon University."
Pennsylvania holds a legacy of industrial firsts, from an early national capital to leadership in oil, highways, and 20th-century steel production. The state has been positioned as a leader in AI readiness, evaluating how companies and governments can adopt and integrate AI into operations. Ethnographic fieldwork traced layered industrial development across Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and northeastern Pennsylvania, revealing mill towns, farmland, and visible industrial infrastructure such as smoke stacks and cooling towers. The Homer City Generation Station, once the state's largest coal-fired plant and decommissioned in 2023, is slated to become a 3,200-acre natural gas–powered data center.
Read at Nonprofit Quarterly | Civic News. Empowering Nonprofits. Advancing Justice.
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