Donald Trump yesterday came to Pennsylvania’s Steel City, a symbol of America’s industrial past, to announce the country’s next “golden age” in the race with China for AI supremacy. It was a grand announcement, but the US is by no means storming ahead.

“America’s destiny is to dominate every industry and be the first in every technology, and that includes being the world’s number one superpower in artificial intelligence,” the President said at the Pennsylvania Energy & Innovation Summit. “And we are way ahead of China,” he added, admitting that at first AI was “not my thing”.

Republican Senator Dave McCormick had convened hundreds of investors, Big Tech leaders, and policymakers in Pittsburgh to announce $92 billion of private-sector investment in natural gas, nuclear power, and data centers that he said will create tens of thousands of jobs in the state.

Trump’s presence cemented Pennsylvania, which swung for the Republican candidate in 2016 and 2024, as the pivotal player in re-industrializing America and competing with China — rhetoric that Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro used when Amazon announced a $20 billion investment in Pennsylvania data center campuses just a month ago.

While the data center investments bring impressive dollar figures, it is unlikely that these initiatives will spark a true techno-industrial renaissance. First, once construction is over, data centers don’t need that many workers to operate. Tax revenues are their main benefit, which has allowed Loudoun County, Virginia — the data center capital of the United States — to have the lowest real estate property tax rate in Northern Virginia.

And then there’s the question of whether regular electricity customers will have to pay for all the costs that go into the power plants and transmission lines these centers will need. A 2024 Virginia audit found that accommodating data centers’ increased energy demand would hike up monthly electricity costs for a typical customer by $14 to $37 by 2040. It’s no wonder, then, that locals in northeast Pennsylvania are protesting against power lines which the utility company wants to build to power data centers.

Trump promised to let tech companies build their own power plants next to data centers, powered by natural gas, nuclear power, and coal — but not wind. His Big Beautiful Bill, which he lauded as “the biggest tax cut in history”, attempts to resurrect America’s dirty coal industry, even as solar-powered electricity now costs less than natural gas. It will also phase out tax credits for solar, wind, and electric vehicles, putting at risk billions of dollars of renewable investments and kneecapping former president Joe Biden’s push for clean energy.

At a time when Saudi Arabia is investing billions of dollars in solar and wind power to generate the force necessary for AI data centers, Trump seems to want to turn the United States — or Pennsylvania with its massive natural gas reserves — into a petrostate. Given that China has leapfrogged the US in solar, batteries, critical mineral processing, and electric vehicles, the President appears to be tying one arm behind his back.

Though heavily reliant on coal, China’s truly “all-of-the-above” energy mix produces twice the electricity of the US — electricity Big Tech companies such as Amazon and Google say they need to power data centers and advance AI. Recognizing this threat, Trump has ordered the Department of Energy to remove regulatory barriers and help add 300 GW of nuclear capacity by 2050. Already, Amazon is building a data center campus next to a Pennsylvania power plant just as Microsoft brings Three Mile Island back online. Manufacturer Westinghouse used the summit to announce plans to build 10 nuclear reactors across the country.

“Lots of jobs. Lots of success. It’s going to be beautiful to behold,” Trump said. “We have a true golden age for America.” And as for China, “we’re not catching them, we’re leading.”