The Walk with Raffa: Ashiss Kumar Dash, EVP and Global Segment Head, Infosys Dash is helping navigate the digital future for leading Fortune 500 and Global 2000 enterprises.

As the energy sector navigates the twin challenges of scaling up renewable and non-carbon sources while addressing energy demand growth, security and reliability, artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a game-changer. From reshaping the generation, transport and end use of low-carbon energy through intelligent, adaptive networks, AI is enabling the next phase of the energy transition.

AI is tackling the complex demands of the new energy landscape - optimizing energy flows, managing remote and distributed assets, developing simpler energy solutions and driving energy and operational efficiency. With real-world examples and transformative insights, AI is not just supporting but accelerating the journey toward a resilient, carbon-neutral energy future.

Infosys, a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, is helping navigate the digital future for leading Fortune 500 and Global 2000 enterprises. Ashiss Kumar Dash ("Dash"), EVP & Global Head - Services, Utilities, Resources, Energy and Enterprise Sustainability at Infosys, is focused on driving Infosys' transformation strategies for industries.

He actively contributes to global conversations on energy transition and sustainable development through prestigious forums like the World Economic Forum and the UN's Global Investors for Sustainable Development Alliance. He represented Infosys at the B20 Summit 2023, the official G20 forum representing the global business community.

So what is his take on the key issues facing us? Here are his insights.

Is AI's role is evolving beyond a technological innovation, into becoming a critical enabler in achieving a sustainable energy future?

AI and Energy Transition are two global megatrends around the world that are very intertwined:

• AI capabilities will be essential to accelerate and increase adoption of energy transition initiatives

• AI and the resulting Data Center demand will create massive load growth in some local regions putting significant pressure on the energy network

The new energy network represents an exponential growth in scale. It is also about the complexity that comes from a very high share of intermittent generation, millions on distributed actors generating, storing and trading electricity and smart cities and buildings and vehicles interacting autonomously.

This scale and complexity will need advanced digital platforms and artificial intelligence models to ensure safe, reliable, resilient delivery of carbon-free electricity and the acceleration of energy transition.

We are seeing utilization of AI in areas like forecasting production of renewable energy, identification of problem trees that could result cause wildfires, site selection of carbon capture / storage sites etc.

Given the concentration of data centers is some regions and the unprecedented load growth rates (15-40%) that local utilities are seeing, it also poses some near-term challenges. In the medium to long term, it could also provide the impetus to rapidly mature technologies like long term storage and small modular reactors.

The energy industry is a complex network of distributed assets- What is the role of AI?

Energy industry in general, and utilities in particular, must orchestrate a complex, geographically distributed set of assets to deliver services to end-customers.

We rely on millions of sensors from smart meters and other sensors that monitor the health of our assets as well as extensive communication networks to understand the health of the system.

Given this scenario, the opportunities for AI are very significant:

• To improve the resilience and reliability of the energy network;

• To deliver insights on the customer usage patterns and drive energy efficiency;

• To predict renewal generation to match the demand;

• Driving efficiency in back office and customer operations as well – areas like customer service where the productivity of agents can be improved when enabled by AI-

We are seeing the application of AI to enable call center agents to be more productive through use of semantic search to synthesize large sets of policy documents to actionable information for the call center agent on a live call. AI is also finding adoption in behind the meter load dis-aggregation. Using this technology, energy companies and their customers can identify appliances that are energy inefficient or provide insight on likely high energy usage and recommendations on how to address it.

What are the barriers to achieving a seamless energy transition, and how can AI help overcome these obstacles to accelerate progress?

Energy transition is a relatively new journey and faces many barriers to adoption and acceleration. Common barriers across energy transition are:

• Challenges of generating competitive risk adjusted returns;

• Lack of strong and stable policy support that creates the appetite for long term investment;

• Lack of robust supply chains and complementary capabilities to make the ecosystem viable;

• Limited talent and skills.

This tends to be different for technologies at different ends of the spectrum. More mature Energy Transition technologies like Renewable generation from Solar and Onshore Wind are already cost competitive and have seen strong early adoption and growth. As these technologies push through the next phase of growth, they are dependent on other factors like the improved grid capabilities and advancements in long-term storage which will improve renewable energy penetration.

How do you see the evolution of the Path to Net Zero within the main GCC countries?

As a leading global energy producer, Saudi Arabia is committed to climate change initiatives. In 2021, His Royal Highness, Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince and Prime Minister, announced the Kingdom's plans to achieve net zero emissions by 2060 through the Circular Carbon Economy approach. Saudi Arabia has pledged to reduce its carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by 278 million tons per year by 2030 in line with the Paris Agreement. This will contribute significantly to achieving global climate targets while protecting international energy security. Kingdom will plant 450 million trees and rehabilitate 8 million hectares of degraded lands by 2030, reducing 200 million tons of carbon emissions with additional initiatives to be announced in the years to come. To further amplify its protection of terrestrial, marine and coastal environments, HRH the Crown Prince announced that Saudi Arabia is joining the Global Ocean Alliance, establishing the Ocean Exploration Foundation and announcing several initiatives – including a Global Center for Tourism Sustainability. HRH the Crown Prince added that this first set of initiatives represents over 700 billion Saudi riyals contributing to the growth of the green economy.

The UAE Net Zero by 2050 strategic initiative is a national drive to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, making the Emirates the first Middle East and North Africa (MENA) nation to act on climate change threats. The country began financing clean energy projects more than 15 years ago, and has invested over 40 billion USD in the sector to date. Current trends predict the production capacity of clean energy, including solar and nuclear, to reach 14 GW by 2030, up from about 100 MW in 2015 and 2.4 GW in 2020. The UAE supports green infrastructure and clean energy projects worldwide and has invested in renewable energy ventures worth around 16.8 billion USD in 70 countries with a focus on developing nations. It has also provided more than 400 million USD in aid and soft loans for clean energy projects.