AI Data Center Breaks Ground on Former Coal Site in Shippingport, Pennsylvania

Aligned Data Centers, headquartered in Dallas, started building Project Phoenix, a three-facility, 2-gigawatt artificial-intelligence data center on the former Bruce Mansfield coal-plant footprint in Shippingport, Pennsylvania. The $10 billion site occupies 660 acres previously used by the 2,490-megawatt FirstEnergy plant that closed in 2019, and will be powered by a new natural-gas generation campus that will also feed surplus electricity back to the PJM grid.

The company projects 3,000 construction jobs, 640 permanent roles and a supply-chain boost for the region, which has seen its population fall to 154 residents. Mayor John Erickson and Aligned CEO Andrew Schaap framed the project as a continuation of Shippingport’s historic role in powering the nation. Yet a recent Quinnipiac University poll shows a majority of Americans—and 68 % of Pennsylvanians—oppose AI data centers in their communities, reflecting broader fears about job loss and environmental impacts. State officials, including Governor Josh Shapiro and Senator Katie Muth, are grappling with regulatory and grid-stability challenges as the state's energy landscape shifts from nuclear and coal to AI-driven data workloads.