19119_Authority_April_2026

22 The Authority │ April But until now, she has not discussed her role in creating the map. Doda said she was concerned about being perceived as an authority figure on data centers, which often process data for artificial intelligence. “I think AI is a good tool,” she said. But she questions whether Pennsylvanians will be the primary beneficiaries of the technology. “We all say that Scranton, the area, is 30 years behind technologically,” she said. Doda internalized this when she moved to California to start college in 2019. The day she arrived at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, she took a taxi instead of an Uber from the airport, which she said her classmates questioned. But Doda had never taken an Uber. “I realized, this is literally a whole new world,” she said. Now, living in Silicon Valley, Doda said some of her friends work for the biggest tech and artificial intelligence companies in the world but aren’t well versed on data centers. And although Doda’s mapping did not reveal an overlap of data centers and former coal mines, Pipa sees the relevance of the region’s industrial history. “To build data centers, you need significant outside investment,” Pipa said. Investors use local land, water, and electricity, which is “not dissimilar to energy extraction.” S Source: Spotlight PA https://www.spotlightpa.org/ news/2025/12/data-centers-penn- sylvania-map-emilia-doda-environ- ment/ Credit for the story at: https://www. nextgenerationnewsroom.org/news/ meet-the-woman-whos-tracking-da- ta-centers-in-pennsylvania Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit news- room producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds the powerful to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. Learn more at spotlightpa.org .