HPE CEO says AI will change power industry and beyond

Antonio Neri, president and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), said artificial intelligence is the country’s latest industrial revolution and will change the way companies view operations and data.

During a keynote conversation at the Edison Electric Institute’s annual meeting in Las Vegas last week, Neri spoke with EEI Chair Maria Pope, president and CEO of Portland General Electric, about the changes in the tech industry, as well as what those changes mean for energy companies.

Neri said the IT industry is entering a new phase that will transform how companies view their data.

“Now, we are entering the conversational AI era, where it’s all about data and putting that data to work to improve productivity and decision-making,” he said. “Data is the most precious asset you have. All of us will have to record data value in the balance sheet [in the future]. You have to protect your data and have to make it work for you.”

Pope said affordability is key for the utilities industry. Electric companies are working to strike a balance between deploying new technologies and ensuring services remain affordable, even as demand increases.

“One of the reasons why affordability is being challenged is that when you talk about all these GPUs and CPUs, our audience sees enormous energy growth,” she said. “And that is creating tremendous opportunity, but also stress in the system.”

That growth, driven by data centers, will help make data work for customers like utilities, he said.

Neri said that by using AI, utilities will be able maximize efficiencies by eliminating servers and hardware that drains electricity, but don’t work at the same level as new technology.

“You have a lot of infrastructure sitting in your data center that’s not sufficient today, and is not being utilized wholly, or does processing in a way that consumes way more energy,” he said. “In many cases, we have demonstrated that you can take 10 of (these inefficient systems) and collapse them into one and reduce power by 90 percent. On top of that, you get to deploy… another set of computers that not only does AI but also those traditional types of workloads. We as a company think about the whole ecosystem, from how do we make these technologies very efficient.”

Neri said Hewlett Packard Enterprises has committed to achieving net zero by 2040.

“We are one of the only two companies in the world that’s going to deliver that on a science-based target,” Neri said.

But as the world continues down the AI path, he said, knowing what AI can do will be key for every leader in every industry.

“We believe AI is the most transformative technology in our lifetime and I think we are in what we call the Generative AI Industrial Revolution,” he said. “All of us in this room need to have a minor in AI. It doesn’t matter what you do: engineer, finance, legal, human resources. If you don’t understand how this technology works, you’re going to be left behind.”

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