This Month's Latest Tech News in Philadelphia, PA - Sunday August 31st 2025 Edition

Weekly commentary: Pennsylvania at the AI inflection point - This summer's Energy and Innovation Summit crystallized a new playbook: anchor AI growth where power is plentiful, and Pennsylvania just flipped the map.

A parade of corporate pledges - characterized in the summit's Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit fact sheet detailing $90B+ in investments and analyzed in depth by Aragon Research analysis of $92B AI investment into Pennsylvania - names Google, Blackstone, CoreWeave and Amazon among the anchors, and pairs data-center plans with grid upgrades, gas and hydropower deals.

The real “so what?”: legacy industrial sites are being recast as energy-and-AI campuses (Homer City and other projects aim to unlock multiple gigawatts), which means tens of thousands of construction and operations roles and fast-growing demand for practical AI skills.

For Philadelphia technologists and career shifters, short, applied courses matter - consider pathways such as Nucamp's Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp to turn local opportunity into actionable skills.

Bootcamp	Length	Cost (early bird)	Syllabus
AI Essentials for Work	15 Weeks	$3,582	AI Essentials for Work syllabus

“The most impactful thing I think that's happening right now is you guys are changing the culture and getting back to a culture of winning in this country.” - Toby Rice (reported by WESA)

Headline 1 - $90B+ AI & energy investment pledges for Pennsylvania: The July Energy and Innovation Summit in Pittsburgh produced more than $90 billion in private commitments to data centers, generation and grid upgrades, and workforce training - big-ticket items include Blackstone's announced $25 billion plan for data centers and power generation, CoreWeave's up-to-$6 billion Lancaster data center, FirstEnergy's $15 billion grid expansion and PPL's $6.8 billion transmission modernization - moves that organizers say will create tens of thousands of construction jobs and thousands of permanent roles across the commonwealth.

Sen. McCormick's fact sheet lays out the full roster of deals and details like a $15 billion Homer City natural-gas purchase to enable over 4 GW of generation and a Brookfield–Google 20‑year hydro repowering for roughly 670 MW; local coverage framed the summit as a pivotal moment for Pennsylvania's pivot to power AI infrastructure.

This influx rewrites regional workforce demand - electricians, operators and short, applied AI courses will be in immediate demand as sites move from announcement to buildout (see the summit fact sheet and City & State's roundup for specifics).

Company	Announced Investment	Note
Blackstone	$25 billion	Data centers + natural gas generation (Northeast PA)
CoreWeave	Up to $6 billion	Lancaster data center (100–300 MW)
FirstEnergy	$15 billion	Grid expansion across 56 counties
PPL Corporation	$6.8 billion	Transmission & capacity upgrades through 2028
Brookfield + Google	$3 billion	Repower two hydro facilities (~670 MW)
Homer City Redevelopment / EQT	$15 billion (gas purchase)	Supports ~4 GW of power; large construction hiring expected

“The most impactful thing I think that's happening right now is you guys are changing the culture and getting back to a culture of winning in this country.” - Toby Rice (reported by WESA)

Headline 2 - CoreWeave's $6B AI data center in Lancaster: CoreWeave has committed to a purpose-built, multi‑billion dollar AI campus outside Philadelphia that starts with a 100 MW facility and can scale up to 300 MW, a footprint the company calls critical to building a Mid‑Atlantic AI hub; read the CoreWeave announcement about the Lancaster AI campus for the company view and Data Center Dynamics coverage of the project for project details.

The site - co‑developed by Chirisa Technology Parks and Machine Investment Group and to be built by a Turner–Wohlsen joint venture - will list CoreWeave as the sole tenant and is being carved out of large, redeveloped industrial parcels in Lancaster County, including former printing‑press properties.

The project, unveiled at the Energy & Innovation Summit, is expected to generate roughly 600 skilled construction jobs and to employ about 70 people at launch, growing toward 175 as the campus expands, while joining CoreWeave's growing network of AI data centers; the scale and speedy permitting push make this a defining regional bet on compute and workforce readiness.

Item	Detail
Project value	$6 billion
Initial capacity	100 MW
Expandable to	300 MW
Location	Lancaster County, PA (redeveloped industrial sites)
Builder / JV	Turner–Wohlsen joint venture
Co‑developers	Chirisa Technology Parks; Machine Investment Group
Jobs (construction)	~600
Jobs (operations)	~70 at launch, scaling to ~175
Tenant	CoreWeave (sole tenant)

“This data center will accelerate innovation and drive economic growth across the region.” - Michael Intrator, CEO of CoreWeave

Headline 3 - Local debate: jobs and growth vs. energy and environment - The Lancaster plans crystallize the tension: redeveloping a portion of a million‑square‑foot former R.R. Donnelley plant into a CoreWeave‑leased campus promises 600–1,000 skilled construction jobs and roughly 150 permanent local roles, plus millions in permits and tax receipts, yet neighbors and advocates worry the power draw could push household rates higher and stress regional grids.

City documents note Phase 1 permits, air‑cooled chillers, and a DEP review for diesel generator permits as the site moves from demolition to buildout, while energy reporters and analysts flag PJM capacity pressures and past rate jumps as reasons for caution.

The core question: who pays for new substations and transmission upgrades - the data center, the utility, or socialized ratepayers - and can planners square local hiring and reused industrial land with reliable, affordable electricity for everyone? See the City of Lancaster data center FAQ and local reporting on bill impacts for the full tradeoffs.

Item	Detail
Sites	216 Greenfield Rd (former R.R. Donnelley) & 1375 Harrisburg Pike
Phase 1 timeline	Begin Aug 2025; complete summer 2027
Jobs	600–1,000 construction; ~150 permanent
Permits / fees	Building permit fees ≈ $7.8M; air quality permit under DEP review
Cooling	Primarily air‑cooled chillers (water use being assessed)

“We're seeing an expected increase in electric bills for average residential customers because of anticipated data center build out.” - Robert Routh, Pennsylvania Policy Director, NRDC (reported by FOX43)

Headline 4 - University AI investments: Penn's "Betty" and research collaborations - The University of Pennsylvania has just plugged a campus-scale boost into the region's AI ecosystem with Betty, an off‑campus NVIDIA SuperPOD designed to unify high‑performance computing and AI for researchers across Penn's 12 schools; see Penn's Betty NVIDIA SuperPOD technical overview on the Penn Betty system page and in-depth local reporting on the Philadelphia.today coverage of the UPenn Betty rollout.

Built as a tenant in a Collegeville Flexential data center, Betty pairs 31 eight‑way GPU nodes and a dedicated NDR400 InfiniBand fabric to let single experiments scale across the whole cluster, delivering roughly 8.5 PFLOPs of performance while consuming about 1 megawatt of power - roughly the electricity used by a village of 1,000 homes - a vivid reminder that cutting‑edge compute needs serious infrastructure.

The platform is meant to speed cross‑disciplinary work from medicine to materials science, give Penn researchers shared, centrally managed access where isolated lab servers fell short, and position the university to climb Top500 ranks as institutes race for AI capacity.

Spec	Detail
GPU nodes	31 (8‑way GPU nodes)
GPU type	8× NVIDIA Blackwell B200 per DGX node
Peak cluster performance	≈ 8.5 PFLOPs
CPU cores	3,474 total
Power profile	≈ 1 megawatt (off‑campus, Collegeville)

“The needs for modern AI research have grown to a scale… where it is no longer feasible to be maintained by any one school.” - Kenneth Chaney, Associate Director of AI and Technology, PARCC

Headline 5 - SEPTA and PPA deploy AI bus-lane enforcement cameras - Philadelphia has moved from pilot to citywide rollout, mounting Hayden AI camera systems on roughly 150+ SEPTA buses and about 38 trolleys to spot vehicles blocking bus lanes and stops; after a seven‑bus 2023 pilot that flagged an average of 4,000 violations per week (about 36,000 obstructions in 70 days), the cameras were activated in mid‑April with a short warning period and enforcement beginning in early May, and every flagged image is reviewed by PPA staff before a ticket is issued to protect accuracy.

The program targets chronic Center City congestion that drags average bus speeds to about 8 mph and costs riders roughly 31 extra hours a year, while officials say the goal is safer, more reliable service and accessible boarding for riders with disabilities - for rollout details see SEPTA bus-lane enforcement program page and local reporting on transparency and oversight by The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Item	Detail
Fleet equipped	~150–152 buses and 38 trolleys
Pilot findings	≈36,000 obstructions in 70 days; 4,000/week (7 buses)
Activation / enforcement	Activated mid‑April; warnings then fines in early May
Impact metrics	Average bus speed ≈8 mph; riders lose ~31 hours/year to congestion
Penalty examples	$101 for blocking a bus lane; ~$76 for Center City double‑parking (reported)

“This study provides us with data that clearly illustrates the high frequency of these violations and how we can use cutting-edge technology to combat these problems.” - Leslie S. Richards, SEPTA CEO and General Manager

Headline 6 - PASS: Penn offers free AI training to Philadelphia teachers - The University of Pennsylvania's Pioneering AI in School Systems (PASS) pilot is bringing no‑cost AI professional development to School District of Philadelphia staff, with classes already underway at the district headquarters on North Broad Street; the three‑tier program trains administrators on strategy and governance, school leaders on tool implementation, and classroom teachers on practical uses like personalized lessons, assessments and time‑saving planning workflows, all with a strong emphasis on ethics and equity.

Backed in part by the Marrazzo Family Foundation and designed to close the local “digital divide,” PASS aims to move districts from ad hoc experimentation to coordinated, classroom‑ready practice - a timely initiative given a 2023 RAND survey finding low baseline AI use among teachers.

Learn more about the program and its goals on Penn GSE's PASS page and see local reporting on the pilot and its funder in WHYY's coverage of Penn's teacher training effort.

Tier	Focus
Tier 1 (Administrators)	Strategic planning, governance, policy
Tier 2 (School leaders)	Implementation and alignment with instructional goals
Tier 3 (Educators)	Practical classroom tools for personalization and assessment

“The digital divide is real in Philadelphia,” - Superintendent Tony Watlington Sr. (reported by WHYY)

Headline 7 - State-level AI governance and pilot programs - Pennsylvania is moving quickly from pitch decks to policy: lawmakers are advancing bipartisan measures that would force transparency and human oversight when AI touches medical care, requiring hospitals, insurers and clinicians to disclose AI use and leave final decisions to a person rather than an algorithm (coverage summarized in Pennsylvania AI healthcare transparency proposal - Healthcare Finance News summary).

At the same time, a House memorandum (Memorandum 47289) introduced Aug. 27 would specifically regulate AI in mental and behavioral health care (Memorandum 47289 tracking - AI regulation in mental and behavioral health (FastDemocracy)), and the state Senate is weighing a pro‑development bill that now includes an amendment to give local communities explicit veto power - requiring majority votes at publicly advertised meetings - over big AI data‑center projects, a shift that could slow timelines but broaden community buy‑in (Senate amendment gives local veto power for AI data-center projects - HOWAYS coverage).

The practical takeaway: these parallel moves mix guardrails for patient safety with new rules for civic participation, and that combo will shape which projects clear permitting, where jobs land, and how quickly compute gets built near Philadelphia.

Measure	Sponsor(s)	Key provisions	Status
Bipartisan AI in healthcare bill	Reps. Arvind Venkat, Tarik Khan, Greg Scott, Bridget Kosierowski, Joe Hogan	Disclosure of AI use; attestations to state agencies; human decision‑maker for individualized care	Advancing in legislature (Aug 2025)
Memorandum 47289 - AI in mental health care	Rep. Melissa Shusterman	Regulate AI use in mental & behavioral health to mitigate risks	Introduced (House memorandum, Aug 27, 2025)
Senate bill + amendment (SB 939)	Sen. Marty Flynn (amendment sponsor)	Streamline AI/data center development but require local approval via public majority votes	Amendment announced (Aug 29, 2025)

“This amendment is about putting power back in the hands of local governments and the people they represent.” - Sen. Marty Flynn (reported by HOWAYS)

Headline 8 - Local startups: Lithero's LARA for life‑sciences compliance - Philadelphia's Lithero, founded by Nyron Burke in 2015, has carved a niche automating the painfully slow marketing‑approval pipeline for pharma with its LARA (Lithero Artificial Review Assistant) platform: think of an AI assistant that pre‑screens claims, references and safety language so human medical‑legal reviewers have far less to rework, and brands can move materials to market faster.

Backed by local partners like Ben Franklin Technology Partners and seeded with Drexel talent (a cofounder met his research partner “by divine intervention” at church), Lithero says LARA screens a page in under 30 seconds, delivers >90% accuracy on day one, and can cut costly review cycles (their site cites illustrative annual savings such as $763K for certain workflows).

For life‑sciences marketers and Philly technologists eyeing applied AI careers, Lithero's climb from incubator space to paying customers is a concrete example of productized ML built for regulated industries - see the Technical.ly profile of Lithero and the LARA Screen feature page for capabilities and case details.

Item	Detail
Founder	Nyron Burke
Founded	2015
Headquarters	Philadelphia, PA
Funding (May 2022)	$0.68M (PitchBook)
Team size	~10
Avg. screening time	<30 seconds per page
Accuracy	>90% on day 1

“There's really little competition, we're totally disrupting the space. There's nothing else like LARA.” - Rachel Kane, VP of Customer Experience

Headline 9 - Workforce shifts: prompt engineering and AI skills premium - Employers are already paying up to roughly a 28–30% premium for AI-ready hires, and the market signal is clear: roles that list an AI or generative-AI skill advertised about $18,000 more in 2024, while candidates who bring two or more AI skills can command a roughly 43% bump, according to Lightcast and reporting in Fortune; that's not academic - it's the difference between a lateral move and a transformative pay upgrade.

Demand has spilled well beyond Silicon Valley: over half of AI-skill postings in 2024 appeared outside traditional tech roles (marketing, HR, finance, manufacturing and more), and prompt engineering in particular has become a high-value, practical pathway - Glassdoor and industry salary guides put average prompt-engineer pay in the six figures and show senior specialists pushing much higher.

For Philadelphia employers and career shifters, the takeaway is pragmatic: short, applied training that pairs domain expertise with prompt design and LLM tooling is the fastest route to capture that premium and remain competitive as hiring bifurcates between automation-driven layoffs in legacy tech and wage gains across AI‑enabled functions (Lightcast Global AI Skills Outlook report, Fortune report: AI talent comes at a 30% salary premium).

Metric	Value (source)
Typical AI skills premium	~28–30% higher pay (Lightcast / Fortune)
Average advertised bump	≈ $18,000 more/year for roles listing AI skills (Lightcast via Fortune)
Premium for 2+ AI skills	≈ 43% salary premium (Fortune summary)
Prompt engineer typical base	~$136,000 (Glassdoor / Coursera reporting)

“AI is becoming more and more pervasive throughout all of the job descriptions that we're seeing for virtually any different career area.” - Cole Napper, VP of research, Lightcast

Headline 10 - Community pilots: caregiving robots and youth AI literacy - Saint Joseph's University and Bancroft have launched a hands‑on community pilot using Pepper, a 4‑foot‑tall social robot, to engage aging adults with autism in assisted‑living settings; the Haub Innovation Center program (and its placement at Bancroft's Judith B. Flicker Residences) pairs simple, joyful activities like Name That Song, Name That Sound and even an impromptu dance party to “Mr. Sandman” with longer‑term aims to track agitation, detect cognitive shifts, and explore what healthy aging looks like for a population that's been under‑studied - read the WHYY report on the Pepper pilot and Montco.today local coverage of the Pepper pilot for full context.

Early results show Pepper can boost engagement and record behaviors over time, and researchers stress the robot is meant as supplemental support, not a replacement for human caregivers; future work may add richer face and speech recognition to improve monitoring and tailored interaction.

Item	Detail
Location	Haub Innovation Center (Saint Joseph's) & Judith B. Flicker Residences
Robot	Pepper (AI social robot)
Partners	Saint Joseph's University; Bancroft
Participants	Five Bancroft residents, ages ~60–80s
Activities	Games, music playback, cognitive stimulation, movement
Purpose	Engagement, monitoring cognitive/health changes, supplementing care

“What does healthy aging look like for this group?” - Karen Lindgren, Bancroft chief clinical officer

Conclusion: What Philadelphia should watch next - With Pennsylvania now the focal point for a $90B+ wave of AI and energy commitments and Q1 2025 startup funding topping $104.3B, the city's near-term priorities are clear: secure affordable, reliable power and fast, transparent permitting; scale hands-on reskilling so local workers capture construction and operations jobs; and nurture product-focused startups that turn compute into real services.

Track the evolving mix of hyperscale plays and power deals in Data Center Frontier's reporting on the statewide buildout and VistaShares' AI Supercycle analysis of infrastructure and hardware winners, and expect policy shifts (local vetoes, interconnection reforms) to shape timelines.

For technologists and career-changers, short applied pathways that teach prompt design and workplace AI tools will matter most - see Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work bootcamp for a practical route to the new job premium.

Watch item	Detail
State investment wave	$90B+ in AI & energy commitments (Data Center Frontier)
Startup funding	≈ $104.3B raised in Q1 2025 (VistaShares)
Nucamp pathway	AI Essentials for Work - 15 weeks; early bird $3,582 (AI Essentials for Work syllabus) - Register for Nucamp AI Essentials for Work

“AI is for sure going to change a lot of jobs, totally take some jobs away, and create a bunch of new ones.” - Sam Altman (quoted in the VistaShares AI Supercycle Report)