# Ground broken on a Rust Belt powerhouse: Shippingport’s data hub rises in the Age of AI Anxiety

> Source: <https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/4729194/ground-broken-rust-belt-powerhouse-pennsylvania-data-hub-ai-anxiety/>
> Published: 2026-09-16 13:10:09+00:00

**SHIPPINGPORT, Pa.** — The last time that I stood on these grounds along the Ohio River in [Beaver County](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tag/pennsylvania/) was 1976, 19 years after the first commercial [nuclear power](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tag/nuclear-power/) plant in the United States opened here.

My Perry High School physics teacher, David Burrows, had loaded a handful of us into a van for a field trip to the atomic station and to the coal-fired Bruce Mansfield plant next door.

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