2026: The Moment for Non-Incremental AI Growth

In just 12 months, the AI Strike Team helped move Pennsylvania from AI job growth potential to execution.

A sold-out AI Horizons Summit convened CEOs across the full AI stack. Waymo committed to testing — and moving toward deployment — in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. And earlier this month, we formalized a partnership with Team Pennsylvania and refreshed our board with global leaders in energy and AI to move faster and operate with real-time industry insight.

The conversation has shifted from why AI matters to how Pennsylvania wins.

The next phase is about acting boldly — and doing it now.

Momentum built quickly.

Ahead of Senator McCormick’s inaugural Energy & Innovation Summit at Carnegie Mellon University, the AI Strike Team hosted an AI Horizons Preview at Aurora’s headquarters — aligned with the company’s global announcement of commercial autonomous vehicle deployment.

That momentum carried into September, when we hosted a sold-out AI Horizons Summit, bringing together leaders across energy, compute, autonomy, healthcare AI, finance, workforce, and policy in a single room.

From the CEOs of Westinghouse, EQT, and Eos, to newly minted Pittsburgh AI unicorns Skild AI, Abridge, and Gecko Robotics, the summit marked a turning point — not just in attendance, but in intent.

Before the doors opened, we convened private plenary sessions with industry and public-sector leaders to chart paths around AI dominance, workforce growth, and job creation.

Those conversations weren’t theoretical. They’re now moving into action.

One early priority was clear: establish “AI Signals” that boldly community Pittsburgh and PA as a future forward place. How better to do that than to bring autonomous vehicle leadership back to Pittsburgh — where the foundational technology was born?

That work is now paying dividends.

Last month, Waymo announced Pittsburgh and Philadelphia as two of its first global Top-20 cities for robotaxi testing, with deployment as the next step.

This did not happen by accident. It required persistent storytelling, coordinated pitching, and activating a powerful diaspora of Pittsburghers across Silicon Valley and beyond who wanted Waymo to come home.

This is the model we intend to keep scaling.

As the AI Strike Team approaches its one-year mark, we are evolving into “Strike Team 2.0” — designed for speed, scale, and non-incremental impact.

Strike Team 2.0 is guided by a reconstituted, industry-led board — bringing together leaders actively deploying AI, building infrastructure, financing growth, and training the workforce.

Board members include leaders from AI, energy, finance, autonomy, workforce development, and research, including CEOs & executives from EQT, Abridge, Eos, Google, BNY, Carnegie Mellon, and Team Pennsylvania.

This composition is intentional. If Pennsylvania is going to lead, it must be guided by those building the future — not just talking about it.

Beyond convening, the AI Strike Team has helped advance the structural pillars of Pennsylvania’s AI economy — from spurring Waymo’s return to Pittsburgh, to launching AIPowerPittsburgh.com, commissioning the first workforce impact analysis for the New AI Economy, launching the Forge AI Prize, and leading Operation Stargate Pittsburgh, a 10-county effort to identify shovel-ready AI infrastructure sites.

This fall, Google launched their free AI accelerator bootcamp for small businesses live at AI Horizons — the first of several free workshops taking place across PA.

Our collaborative work has earned recognition across regional, national, and international outlets — but more importantly, it is laying durable groundwork for what comes next.

In collaboration with CMU Startup Week, 2026 will further activate that Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania diaspora around place-based investment.

A focused AI event timed to the NFL Draft, designed to showcase Pittsburgh & Pennsylvania’s AI leadership while the world is watching.

Senator John Fetterman introduced bipartisan legislation to scale CMU’s Cloud Lab model into a national network.

The AI Strike Team advances strategic initiatives and cross-sector partnerships that catalyze AI-driven investment, innovation, and adoption — positioning Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania for sustained growth and leadership in the New AI Economy.