Today’s announcement by President Donald Trump that America’s biggest companies are investing $90 billion to turn Pittsburgh into a major hub for AI tech is a grand slam.

It touches all the bases of Trump’s economic agenda — manufacturing, energy, tech supremacy — and it also addresses national security.

Love it or hate it, artificial intelligence is here to stay. The capability of the technology is growing rapidly, and will eventually make its way into every corner of our lives — if it hasn’t already.

Yet AI requires massive data centers with powerful computers running around the clock. These machines, and the air conditioners to cool them, have huge energy demands.

By one estimate, data centers just in the United States used 167 terawatts of electricity in 2023. That’s enough to power all of America for more than two weeks.

And that need for energy will only grow. Data-center electricity usage is expected to double in the next five years.

This isn’t just a question of playing with Grok. The military and intelligence applications of AI are extraordinary, which is why China is trying to corner the market on this field.

Drone warfare, threat assessment, missile defense and counter-espionage — the future of conflict will be driven by artificial intelligence.

Beijing is already building a network of nuclear-power plants meant to radically increase China’s power capacity.

In fact, China’s electricity generation soared more than eight-fold from about 1,240 terrawatt-hours in 1999 to more than 10,000 last year. US generation has mostly stood still, at about 4,000 TWh, over that time.

Which is why today’s Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit at Carnegie-Mellon University is so important.

Leaders from industry joined scientists and policy makers to reach common ground on the steps ahead.

Google, ExxonMobil and other companies are committing tens of billions of their dollars to build data centers, energy and power infrastructure, and to expand workforce training in AI.

Western Pennsylvania is an apt site for this: The first oil well was sunk there in 1859, and the coal and steel industries that built America’s bridges and buildings sprung up there, too.

More recently, the fracking revolution has helped the United States become energy-independent for the first time in years.

Meanwhile, this new initiative will bring tens of thousands of jobs to an area hit hard by the transfer of industry overseas.

And it represents the fruit of the MAGA project of reshoring manufacturing to help rebuild the American middle class.

President Trump and Pennsylvania’s Gov. Josh Shapiro and Sens. Dave McCormick and John Fetterman deserve shared bipartisan kudos for working together and with industry to make this tremendous project possible.

Three cheers for innovation and unshackling American potential!