Blackstone will reportedly invest $25 billion to build data centers and natural gas power plants in Pennsylvania, a move aimed at meeting the soaring energy demands of artificial intelligence technologies.

Speaking at the Energy and Innovation Summit in Pittsburgh, Blackstone President and COO Jon Gray said the firm has identified multiple sites for the energy-intensive facilities. The plan includes partnering with a regional electric utility to construct several natural gas power generation units that will directly fuel the data centers.

Gray highlighted the co-location model, where data centers are built adjacent to power plants, as key to accelerating development. By cutting out long transmission timelines and mitigating permitting delays, the approach could speed up the rollout of critical AI infrastructure.

“What makes us so excited about this area is the idea that you can co-locate data centers directly next to the source of power,” Gray said. “That’s the special sauce — bringing these pieces together.”