Really solid local reporting that followed Pennsylvania’s AI infrastructure boom from political announcement to real-world consequences. By doing the math and grounding a massive technology story in its local impact, the reporting made the stakes tangible and clear.
This entry tracks Pennsylvania’s so-called $90 billion AI infrastructure buildout from the splashy July 2025 political event where it was announced to the town council meetings where the actual consequences are being debated and decided. It includes four published pieces and one Instagram Reel, reported across Technical.ly’s Pittsburgh, Philly and statewide desks.
The package’s centerpiece followed in late July: an interactive data-driven explainer published the week after US Sen. Dave McCormick’s Energy and Innovation Summit at Carnegie Mellon University. Katie and two Pennsylvania-based Technical.ly reporters mapped every pledged project by type and location and dug into the senator’s press release. They found that several investments had been previously announced under the Biden administration, and that some figures cited by McCormick’s office did not match what the companies themselves had pledged.
In December, Alice reported from a Springdale Borough Council meeting in Allegheny County where members voted 5-2 to approve a 565,000-square-foot data center over months of community opposition. A tracker published in February 2026 followed where each of the announced projects actually stood.
