Powering Pennsylvania's AI Future

Last week, Pittsburgh captured national attention as a focal point for the future of artificial intelligence, energy infrastructure, and cloud computing. Held at Carnegie Mellon University, the Pennsylvania Energy & Innovation Summit brought together tech giants like Google and Microsoft, financial powerhouses like Blackstone, and energy providers like ExxonMobil to announce over $90 billion in planned investment into AI-related infrastructure across Pennsylvania – data centers chief among them.

For a region long known for reinvention (see Pete, Stuart, and Julia’s article series on Reshoring the Rust Belt), this signals another defining chapter. But as data centers begin to break ground in Western and Central Pennsylvania, one question becomes increasingly urgent: how can these facilities operate at the scale AI demands while maintaining a commitment to long-term sustainability and efficiency?

To keep pace with AI’s energy needs without sacrificing environmental responsibility, data centers must be designed and operated with efficiency at the forefront.

The Energy Behind AI: Data Centers as Infrastructure

Modern data centers are the physical backbone of AI, machine learning, and cloud-based computing. These facilities house racks of servers and storage systems that run 24/7, supported by redundant power, cooling, and environmental controls. But they are also among the most energy-intensive building types in existence.

Globally, data centers already consume between 1% and 2% of electricity use—and that number is expected to double in the coming years as AI adoption accelerates. While many recent announcements in Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania included plans to tap hydropower, nuclear retrofits, and even new gas plants, where the energy comes from is only half the story. How efficiently it’s used inside the building is equally critical.

That makes Pennsylvania’s moment a pivotal one. The region’s mix of affordable land, access to fiber optic networks, robust power infrastructure, and research institutions make it an attractive location for data centers. However, without intentional planning and operational discipline, the long-term consequences could include high energy costs, excess carbon emissions, and performance challenges.

Sustainability in this context isn’t just about carbon—it’s also about resilience, adaptability, and operational integrity. These facilities must be designed and operated to meet high demands reliably, while minimizing lifecycle, environmental and financial risk.

Commissioning: A Critical Path to Sustainable Performance

Commissioning is a process that verifies and optimizes the performance of a building’s systems—mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and controls—through design, construction, and occupancy. For data centers, where performance and uptime are non-negotiable, commissioning plays a uniquely vital role.

Key benefits of commissioning in data centers include:

• ‍Energy efficiency: By optimizing airflow, right-sizing equipment, and tuning controls, commissioning can reduce energy consumption by 15–30%.
• ‍Reliability: Verifying that backup power systems, cooling units, and emergency protocols function properly helps ensure business continuity and minimizes risk.
• ‍Cost savings: Small improvements in operational efficiency can yield major savings over time—especially in high-load environments.
• ‍Resilience: As load patterns shift and infrastructure ages, monitoring based commissioning helps maintain performance and extend equipment life.

In short, commissioning isn’t just a best practice in data centers—it’s essential to meeting both financial and environmental goals.

Aligning Infrastructure with Climate Responsibility

Pennsylvania is no stranger to large-scale infrastructure, but this new wave of growth carries different implications. Alongside last week’s announcements came concerns: the risk of rising emissions, potential overreliance on fossil fuels, and a need for accountability around environmental performance.

Commissioning provides a measurable framework for ensuring new data centers are:

• Designed for efficiency
• Tested for performance
• Operated with precision
• Capable of transparent energy and emissions reporting

These outcomes are critical for organizations looking to align with ESG benchmarks, carbon neutrality goals, and increasing regulatory expectations around climate impact.

BranchPattern’s Role in High-Performance, Mission-Critical Facilities

As a building consultancy rooted in sustainability and performance, BranchPattern brings deep expertise in commissioning, energy modeling, and carbon strategy for mission-critical environments.

With a portfolio that includes data centers, research labs, hospitals, and other continuous-operation buildings, BranchPattern supports clients from concept through occupancy. Services include:

• Commissioning, retro-commissioning, and monitoring based commissioning
• Envelope and systems testing
• Energy simulation and predictive modeling
• Carbon impact assessment and ESG reporting alignment

BranchPattern understands that in facilities like data centers, performance is everything—and that sustainable operation must be engineered from the start.

Conclusion: Building Smarter in an Unstoppable Era

AI-driven infrastructure is expanding rapidly—and it's not inherently sustainable. The computational intensity required to power AI models and data processing comes with enormous energy and resource demands, and the pace of development is only accelerating. The train has left the station, and Pennsylvania is quickly becoming a central stop. That makes it even more urgent to ensure the buildings behind this movement are designed to perform—not just functionally, but responsibly.

Sustainability in this new era means more than efficiency. It means buildings that can adapt to shifting energy demands, respond intelligently to grid pressures, minimize carbon emissions, and support long-term resiliency. It also means challenging ourselves to make smart choices about the systems we build—and how we operate them over time.

Commissioning, performance modeling, and monitoring based commissioning are essential tools in that effort, helping ensure these facilities do what they’re intended to do—no more, no less, and with far greater clarity and accountability.

As AI reshapes what’s possible, BranchPattern is committed to helping ensure the infrastructure behind it reflects what’s necessary: buildings that serve both innovation and impact.

Want to Build Smarter?

Contact BranchPattern to learn how commissioning can support efficient, sustainable operations for your next data center or mission-critical project.