Former U.S. President Donald Trump is set to announce a $70 billion investment package tomorrow at the Energy and Innovation Summit at Carnegie Mellon University, aimed at bolstering America’s strained power grid and supporting the infrastructure needed for artificial intelligence expansion. This marks one of the largest investments in energy and AI in U.S. history.
Major companies like Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet, ExxonMobil, BlackRock, SoftBank, and Anthropic are expected to participate in the summit, which is framed as a strategic response to China’s $1.5 trillion AI drive and its rapid development of solar-powered data centers.
A key highlight of the summit will be Blackstone’s planned $25 billion investment in data centers and energy infrastructure across Pennsylvania, projected to generate 6,000 annual construction jobs and 3,000 permanent roles.
Trump’s remarks leading up to the event have emphasized AI leadership as a matter of national security. Alongside the investments, U.S. officials are preparing executive orders to eliminate bureaucratic barriers to building critical infrastructure, including faster permitting processes under the Clean Water Act, opening federal lands, and accelerating grid connections.
Trump’s energy strategy also includes a revival of nuclear power, with Microsoft and Constellation Energy spearheading the reopening of the Three Mile Island Unit 1 reactor, now rebranded as the Crane Clean Energy Center.
Scheduled to reopen in 2027, the plant will provide 835 megawatts of carbon-free energy under a 20-year contract to Microsoft’s data centers. This marks one of the first nuclear restarts in American history and could become a national model for powering the AI economy.
With data centers projected to consume 8.6% of U.S. electricity by 2035, up from 3.5%, the urgency of these infrastructure investments is growing. The upcoming release of Trump’s “AI Action Plan” on July 23, dubbed “AI Action Day,” will emphasize deregulation, fossil fuels, and nuclear energy as tools to cement U.S. dominance in the AI sector.
Industry leaders like Khaldoon Al-Mubarak, Larry Fink, Rene Haas, Darren Woods, Brendan Bechtel, and Dario Amodei are set to attend the summit, signaling that the future of AI is increasingly powered by energy as much as by innovation.