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Australia’s energy transition is often framed as a challenge. Through the lens of artificial intelligence, advanced industry and digital infrastructure, it is also a major economic opportunity.

As the global energy transition accelerates, maintaining the long-term stamina of critical infrastructure like wind turbines requires being able to spot hidden risks before they can become failures. Proactively protecting these systems means uninterrupted energy for neighborhoods, smarter and safer environments for inspectors, and lower operational costs.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration determined that 2024, which witnessed a raft of Category 5 hurricanes, was the worst year in a decade for U.S. power outages. The spike meant that the average utility customer was without power for 11 hours in 2024, nearly double the average of the preceding 10 years. Beyond the storms, worsening trends in wildfires and floods are raising costs for utilities, placing pressure on household budgets. 

Meeting the urgent challenge of the global energy transition requires solving massive infrastructure hurdles at unprecedented speed. It means mastering the invisible forces that dictate performance: the airflow around wind turbine blades, the effect of moisture trapped inside a power transformer, the change of phase from liquid to gas within a small modular nuclear reactor.

Fifteen years ago, the world’s power grids were starting to change fast. As coal plants retired and renewables expanded, power systems needed technology that could deliver both flexibility and scale. GE Vernova’s H-class gas turbine was built for that moment, and its record-breaking combined-cycle efficiency helped make it the fastest-growing fleet in its class.

As artificial intelligence scales, so does the challenge of powering it. New data centers demand more advanced power and control systems that reliably deliver massive quantities of energy. Researchers are developing flexible, efficient infrastructure designed for the next generation of computing.