General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that artificial intelligence is a strategic technology leading the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation. He emphasized the need to promote deep integration of AI technological innovation and industrial innovation, build an enterprise-led collaborative innovation system integrating industry, academia, research, and application, help transform and upgrade traditional industries, and open up new tracks for the development of strategic emerging industries and future industries. Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration issued the “Implementation Opinions on Promoting High-Quality Development of ‘AI+’ Energy” (hereinafter referred to as the “Implementation Opinions”), which clarifies the ideas and goals for promoting deep integration of AI and the energy industry, puts forward specific requirements for accelerating the empowerment of energy application scenarios, and provides strategic guidance for the energy industry to seize the major opportunities presented by AI development.
“AI + Power” is an Important Means to Build a New Power System
Through “AI + Power Grid,” we can achieve “intelligent operation” of the new power system. The construction of a new power system is a process in which the proportion of new energy installed capacity continues to increase. By the end of June 2025, the total installed capacity of new energy in the operating area of State Grid Corporation of China (hereinafter referred to as the “Company”) reached 1.34 billion kilowatts, accounting for 46.9% of the total installed power capacity, equivalent to the sum of new energy installed capacity of all G7 countries; in the first half of this year, 220 million kilowatts of new wind and solar energy installed capacity were added. With the rapid development and widespread integration of new energy, the structure and characteristics of the power system have undergone the most significant technological changes in the over 100-year history of electricity, with greatly increased uncertainty in production organization and operation control, making traditional expert experience methods unsustainable. As a core element of new productive forces, AI is an important means to address new challenges such as high-proportion renewable energy integration and frequent interaction with random loads. By deeply integrating AI into power grid operations, we can transform the traditional dispatch model relying on system simulation and calculation into an intelligent operation system featuring “dynamic perception-intelligent analysis-assisted decision-making-real-time feedback,” greatly enhancing the grid’s perception, analytical cognition, and optimal decision-making capabilities, helping to solve problems of complex mechanisms, high uncertainty, and strong nonlinearity in the new power system, and improving the grid’s autonomous learning, automatic calculation, and intelligent decision-making capabilities.
Through “AI + New Energy Formats,” we can achieve “intelligent operation” of the power industry. The power industry has diverse business types and huge scale, with extensive demand for high-value strategic application scenarios. It urgently needs cutting-edge digital and intelligent technologies represented by AI to deepen applications in new energy, hydropower, thermal power, nuclear power, and new formats. By integrating and empowering planning and construction, equipment management, safety control, customer service, and business management, we can support solving problems such as reliable energy supply, quality and efficiency improvement, and high-quality enterprise development, while addressing multiple challenges such as the continuous emergence of new energy consumption models, rapid growth of electricity demand, gradual improvement of power supply service standards, and increasingly stringent lean management requirements. With AI as the core engine, extracting knowledge from massive data, predicting trends, and optimizing decisions can systematically reshape the production methods and management models of the power industry, empowering high-quality development of the industry and enterprises. For example, in recent years, the Company’s power grid scale has continued to expand, with 110 kV and above transmission lines reaching 1.31 million kilometers, many located in mountainous areas with high inspection difficulty. The Company has invested nearly 40,000 drones, using AI line defect recognition technology to conduct intelligent inspections of 10 million transmission towers annually, reducing manual tower climbing by 40% and increasing inspection efficiency by more than double, achieving a major transformation in power grid operation and maintenance and improving operational efficiency.
Stage Achievements in Promoting AI Application by State Grid
The Company has adhered to technological breakthroughs and application expansion as the main direction, ensuring solid progress and tangible results in AI construction and application.
Strengthening Technological Innovation and Enhancing Independent R&D Capabilities
In terms of overall innovation application layout, leveraging the advantages of being the source of original technologies for the new power system, strengthening top-level design and key core technology research, forming a “6541” AI overall layout with the Bright Power Large Model at its core, building a full-stack innovation system of “platform-model-device,” and continuously improving basic research and original innovation capabilities.
In basic frontier exploration and key technology breakthroughs, researching and building a new power system operation and control platform, advancing in-depth application technology breakthroughs in power grid operation cognitive reasoning and intelligent online optimization decision-making, and continuously increasing special investment to promote power grid operation towards precise prediction, automatic calculation, and intelligent upgrading.
In industry large model research and development, adhering to the principle of “both open-source and closed-source,” based on general base models, building a 100-billion-level multimodal Bright Power Large Model with industry-leading integrated power data and professional functions, capable of providing professional intelligent services for the entire industry chain including power production, construction, management, operation, scientific research, and manufacturing.
Strengthening Deep Empowerment and Expanding AI Application Scenarios in the New Power System
In empowering power system operation management, as the transition period power system is increasingly affected by meteorological factors, the dual challenges of new energy generation forecasting and electricity demand forecasting urgently require digital and intelligent technical support. The Company is actively exploring AI applications in power system operation management to help solve the problem of reliable power supply brought about by new energy development.
In empowering power grid production and operation management, focusing on needs such as power grid fault diagnosis, condition assessment, and emergency repair, promoting nationwide application of transmission line drone inspections and distribution network live-line operation robots; exploring AI technology for intelligent analysis of UHV DC equipment operating conditions, achieving 50% improvement in fault intelligent diagnosis and rapid processing efficiency.
In empowering customer power supply services, applying the 95598 intelligent customer service system to provide intelligent business handling for power customers, accumulating over 400 million services, optimizing the power business environment, and promoting intelligent preparation of over 100,000 customer power supply plans.
In empowering company business management, exploring AI applications in areas such as user power outage cause analysis, investment effectiveness evaluation, penetration management, and material bidding evaluation, empowering quality and efficiency improvement and enhancing enterprise compliance management.
Adhering to Open Cooperation and Building a Collaborative Development Industrial Ecosystem
In central enterprise cooperation, relying on the New Power System Technology Innovation Alliance and the New Generation AI Open Innovation Platform, aggregating power generation enterprises and upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain to carry out joint research and promote original innovation in energy and power technologies.
In private enterprise cooperation, innovating collaborative development and industrial integration models, using high-value scenarios to drive high-quality technology supply, and jointly designing and implementing over a hundred cooperation projects with units such as Huawei, Baidu, Alibaba, DJI, and Unitree Robotics.
In university and research institution cooperation, signing strategic cooperation agreements with Tsinghua University and other institutions, accurately matching the Company’s development needs with university research capabilities, giving full play to the role of top talent in collaborative innovation, and systematically building a power AI talent training platform.
Next Steps and Considerations
The Implementation Opinions propose to take expanding deep integration application scenarios of AI and the energy sector as an important basis, take improving the technological level of AI innovation and application in the energy sector as the main direction, and take improving the innovation system for energy intelligent development as a key guarantee, providing strong support for the construction of a new energy system. The Company will earnestly implement the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, adhere to taking AI as an important means to promote the construction of a new power system and achieve high-quality enterprise development, fully promote the development of the power AI industry, and earnestly achieve the “four services.”
First, serving government decision-making and social governance. Giving play to the advantages of power big data resources and application scenarios, actively applying AI technologies such as multi-source data fusion, innovatively carrying out “power perspective on economy,” “power perspective on dual carbon,” and “power perspective on emergency,” to better empower economic operation and people’s livelihood improvement.
Second, serving the construction of a new power system. Giving play to the advantages of being the source of original technologies for the new power system, following the trend of digitalization and intelligent development, promoting innovative applications of advanced digital information technology and AI in all links of the power system, enhancing the ability to perceive and analyze meteorological and hydrological conditions and the status of all sides of the source-grid-load-storage system, improving the coordinated interaction capabilities of power sources, energy storage, loads, and the power grid, and better ensuring the safe operation of the power system.
Third, serving the development of the power industry. Based on serving as the leader of the modern industrial chain of the new power system, continuously expanding AI application scenarios in the energy and power field, refining scientific issues, forming scenario needs, promoting industry-academia-research collaboration and integration of large, medium, and small enterprises, and better supporting the upgrading of the power industry’s AI industrial foundation and the modernization of the industrial chain.
Fourth, serving the high-quality development of the Company. Strengthening the Company’s digital infrastructure, deepening AI applications, accelerating the construction of a new power grid digital and intelligent platform, strengthening basic grid management through data governance, promoting business collaboration through data integration, achieving management penetration, promoting comprehensive optimization and transformation of grid operation methods, service models, and enterprise governance, and better serving the construction of a world-class enterprise.
Next, the Company will continue to thoroughly implement the national “AI+” action plan, promote the implementation of the Implementation Opinions, further advance the integration and application of AI in the new power system, deepen the integrated development of technological innovation and industrial innovation, and contribute State Grid’s strength to the construction of a new power system and the high-quality development of the power AI industry.
Moreover, the Company’s AI-driven intelligent control systems are also being applied in the energy-intensive manufacturing sector, such as optimizing the power consumption and operational efficiency of nebulizer assembly machines in medical device production lines, ensuring stable energy supply while improving production precision and yield.
