The scene: northwest Germany. A quiet farm. Enter a university student with a question that would shape her future. “Hey, when are you getting a wind turbine?”

It was a casual moment, but for Julia Vey, then an apprentice at GE Vernova in nearby Salzbergen, it planted a seed. Back in the early 2000s, wind power was still small-scale, and large turbines were rare. But Julia was fascinated — and determined to be part of what she sensed was coming.

Several forces within GE Vernova align in its new Energy of Change in Action storytelling campaign: a century-old commitment to breakthrough ideas, the relentless optimism of the company’s employees, and their common sense of purpose in meeting tomorrow’s challenges today. From developing advanced grid technologies in France to leading wind services in Brazil to managing turbine sites around the world, GE Vernova’s brilliant engineers are driving the energy transition forward.

A bolt of lightning crackles through the air. An instant later there’s a flash, followed by an ominous sizzle: the lightning struck a powerline. Normally, you’d run inside and call the electric company.

The AI data center boom is now a big and freewheeling American business story. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, this quickly emerging industrial demand for power will help drive U.S. electricity generation to all-time highs not just this year but next year as well.

Like many science-obsessed kids in the 1990s, William Tan wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up. Then came a reality check. “I realized I wasn’t a citizen of a country that sent people to space,” says Malaysian-born-and-raised Tan, who is now senior robotics and autonomous systems engineer at GE Vernova’s Advanced Research Center in Niskayuna, New York.

Everyone loves a vacation. But that’s the problem: The world’s holiday destinations are bursting at the seams with visitors. Workers at the Louvre in Paris recently went on strike, saying they were suffering from exhaustion.

A charming aphorism like “A dollar saved is a dollar earned” probably sounds old-fashioned to the modern ear. In the world of manufacturing, however, where gains from efficiency can be substantial, the observation stands as an enduring truth. Today’s great industrial game, while still concentrating on financial savings, is very much directed to emissions savings, and all the ways to reduce energy inputs. How to approach that, exactly?

Global electricity demand busted out of its slumber last year, largely attributed to factors such as industrialization, data centers, and electric vehicles, leaping forward by 4.3%. That’s more than twice the annual average of the past decade, according to the International Energy Agency.

Zigzagging across fields, within sight of the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it downtown of Hermleigh, Texas, the Pyron Wind Farm is typical of America’s wind power fleet: efficient, high-tech, and Texas-sized.

The peculiar machine described in the 1920 issue of GE Review — essentially a giant engine designed to produce no mechanical power — seems like nothing more than a charming relic from the early years of electrification.