Joanna Doven is Closing Gaps Through the AI Strike Team
As published inThe Pittsburgh Business Times, June 11, 2025 — Jordyn Hronec
Story Highlights
Pittsburgh is branding itself as an AI hub along "AI Avenue."
Joanna Doven leads efforts to develop the region's AI sector.
A panel discussion on AI Avenue's future is scheduled for June 18.
Editor's note: Over the past several months, efforts to brand the Pittsburgh region as a hub for artificial intelligence have ramped up significantly. At the center of these efforts, led in large part by the newly formed AI Strike Team, has been a corridor in the City of Pittsburgh’s East End neighborhoods along a stretch of Penn Avenue that has, within the past year, taken on the moniker of AI Avenue. AI Avenue is anchored by properties such as Walnut Capital’s Bakery Square, perhaps most notable for its role as the home of Google’s Pittsburgh office, as well as Liberty East, home to tech unicorn Duolingo Inc. The Pittsburgh Business Times is bringing together a panel of individuals to provide their insights and perspectives on the future of AI Avenue at a breakfast event scheduled for June 18 at Bakery Square Three. Moderated by Pittsburgh Business Times Market President and Publisher Evan Rosenberg, Corridors of Opportunity: AI Avenue will give attendees the chance to hear local experts talk about what’s ahead for the corridor. For more details about the event or to register to attend, visit our events webpage.
The growth of AI Avenue has perhaps no stronger champion than Joanna Doven, executive director of the newly created AI Strike Team, a working group of local stakeholders that are looking to close gaps and help make investments in the region’s AI sector come to life. She’s a key organizer behind the AI Horizons Pittsburgh Summit, which was held in Bakery Square for the first time last year and is set to return this fall. The event brought together AI experts, policymakers and industry leaders from around the world. Her work in making connections and telling stories about the region’s successes has been ongoing for almost 20 years, as she’s also the CEO of Premo Consultants.
What does the vision for AI Avenue look like in the next 5-10 years?
AI Avenue will be the physical and economic spine of Pittsburgh’s New AI Economy. Picture a corridor stretching from Bakery Square to the Robotics Innovation Institute at Hazelwood Green — dense with talent, power and purpose. You’ll see high-performance computing centers alongside AI startups and global tech players, hospitals trialing AI diagnostics and universities that don’t just educate, but co-create with industry. Over the next decade, this corridor will evolve into a nationally recognized cluster of applied AI, where breakthroughs are not only researched, but deployed at scale to solve real-world problems in defense, health care, manufacturing and energy.
What will define its success?
Success will be defined by jobs — not just research jobs, but real, commercial AI jobs. It’s also about startup survival and scale. Are AI companies launching, growing and staying here? Is Pittsburgh where the world’s next wave of AI products are being built, and are AI innovators moving to Pittsburgh to scale operations? And ultimately, is the city exporting value in the form of AI-driven solutions while importing capital, talent and industry partners?
What specific gaps is the AI Strike Team aiming to address?
Our job is to work with partners to close the commercialization gap. Pittsburgh has elite research capacity. What we need is more AI deployment capacity. That means access to inference compute, ready-to-build sites for data centers, targeted workforce development and a clearer policy framework to compete with faster-moving states. We’re aligning universities, startups, government and real estate to reduce friction and lower the cost of doing AI here. We’re also ensuring that AI’s growth lifts communities with real training pipelines and industrial reuse projects in places like Aliquippa and Larimer.
Why is establishing a distinct physical identity like AI Avenue crucial?
AI is not abstract — it’s physical. It needs space, power, compute and people. Clustering those assets gives us a competitive edge. AI Avenue tells investors, companies and policymakers: This is where it’s happening. Cities that win in AI will be those that build identifiable districts where innovation compounds, the way Kendall Square did for biotech. We’re doing that here, but with Pittsburgh’s edge: Affordability, grit and deep technical credibility.
How do you see the physical infrastructure and built environment contributing to the growth of AI Avenue?
Infrastructure is destiny. If we don’t have the power, the fiber, the buildings and the zoning ready, we lose the race before it starts. The AI economy requires advanced infrastructure: GPU data centers, dry lab R&D space, secure facilities for defense AI work and live-work campuses that attract top talent. Cities that get this right — that modernize their built environment to serve AI — will become magnets for growth. Pittsburgh can lead here because we have room to build and a legacy of retooling for the next economy.
