A new chapter began at Carnegie Mellon University this summer. Convened by U.S. Sen. David McCormick, the inaugural “Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit” signaled a paradigm shift.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum captured the summit’s central theme with a phrase that reframed the moment: “Don’t call it AI. It’s manufacturing intelligence. It is turning electricity into intelligence.”

That simple reframing reveals a profound evolution in the American industrial story.

The first Industrial Revolution converted physical energy into physical output: steel, textiles, locomotives.

Pennsylvania stood at the heart of that movement, its veins coursing with oil from from Titusville and Bradford and its skyline shaped by Pittsburgh’s steel. Coal-fired forges and hydro-powered mills scaled human capacity to what had been unimaginable. The results were tangible: bridges, smokestacks, railroads, cities, and goods.

Today’s transformation is different. This is not the mechanization of labor. It is the automation of thought.

The “Manufacturing Intelligence Revolution” uses the same fundamental input: energy. Instead of forging steel or printing microchips, it generates intelligence. Electricity now lights up language models.

This conversion, electricity into cognition, is as profound as fire into steam. It represents the harnessing of raw energy not just to shape the world around us, but to replicate and expand the very processes of human reasoning. Intelligence has always been the domain of human beings. Now, we are engineering systems that mimic, and in some cases exceed, those capabilities using nothing more than electrons, algorithms, and ambition.

Massive data centers draw on electricity to train neural networks, analyze language, and make split-second decisions once reserved for human minds.

Again, Pennsylvania is poised to lead.

Its vast Marcellus Shale reserves, robust nuclear capacity, and enduring manufacturing base make it one of the few states capable of powering this next revolution.

In fact, the commonwealth is home to the only American company that builds nuclear power plants. Coupled with the research muscle of Pennsylvania’s colleges and universities and the workforce infrastructure of its trades and technical schools, Pennsylvania is emerging as a linchpin in the global AI economy.

However, energy alone is not enough. Just as the industrial economy needed workers to run presses and weld girders, the AI economy needs skilled tradespeople to build data centers, their components, and maintain massive energy infrastructure.

GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik, whose company builds the turbines that power this transformation, put it plainly: “We add 12 blue-collar jobs every Monday.” Yet even this momentum faces headwinds. Mike Rowe, host of *Dirty Jobs*, added a sobering note: “Five out; two in.”

For every five tradespeople retiring, just two are entering the field. That imbalance is a national threat. No infrastructure gets built without hands. No data center gets built without skilled labor.

The Manufacturing Intelligence Revolution will require similar resolve, but with even higher precision. HVAC specialists, welders, electricians, and engineers must meet rigorous standards to ensure that this digital infrastructure runs without fail.

Closing this gap will demand investment not just in machines, but in people. Vocational education, apprenticeships, and technical training must move to the center of economic development strategy.

At the summit, McCormick and more than 60 CEOs, including President Donald Trump, announced over $90 billion in new investment, including Blackstone’s $25 billion commitment to AI-ready infrastructure. These investments are expected to generate 6,000 annual construction jobs and 3,000 permanent positions.

This isn’t speculative. It’s already happening.

The stakes are existential. McCormick made clear it is not just about prosperity. It’s about sovereignty. If America doesn’t build the infrastructure and train the workforce needed to power AI, someone else will. In a world where intelligence is the currency of power, that someone is likely to be China.

Pennsylvania, rich in energy, talent and grit, can once again be the state that builds what America needs. The challenge ahead is not whether the revolution will come.

It’s whether we will be ready to reorient our educational system for output instead of input – and whether we will meet this moment with the same audacity that once forged steel, lit our cities, and launched us to the moon.

(Athan Koutsiouroumbas is a managing director at Long Nyquist and Associates and a former congressional chief of staff.)