Power companies are speeding up their digital evolution, with this year's investments in digital technology hitting 42.9 billion yuan and authorized patents already topping 9,900, according to remarks at the 2026 AI Plus Energy Development Exchange, a side event of the New Power System Development Forum in Chongli.

Yang Kun, Party Secretary and Executive Vice Chairman of the China Electricity Council, said artificial intelligence has become a vital engine for nurturing new quality productive forces. He highlighted that major power firms have deployed industry-specific large models, such as China Southern Power Grid's Da Wa Te, while green-powered computing centers in Ningxia Zhongwei, Inner Mongolia Ulanqab, and Zhangjiakou are now fully operational.

The council will stick to its role of serving enterprises and bridging industry with government, Yang added, focusing on AI-driven energy transformation and computing-power coordination with power. Efforts will center on refining the AI standards framework to provide solid backing for high-quality industry growth.

Xiang Haiping, former Chief Engineer of the National Energy Administration and a committee member of China Southern Power Grid's expert panel, described the current period as a historic meeting point between the physical energy world and the AI digital world. He argued that computing-enabled energy will define the sector's development path for decades to come.

Xiang outlined the strategic significance of AI empowering energy transition from political, developmental, and responsibility perspectives, noting that the fusion of AI and energy now shows traits of shared evolution between computing and power, model-driven enablement, on-the-ground scenario deployment, and cross-sector integration. He proposed five priorities: strengthening top-level design, breaking through core technologies, promoting practical applications, maintaining safety standards, and building an industrial ecosystem.

Li Rui, Party Group Member and Vice President of China Southern Power Grid, pointed out that computing-power coordination was written into the government work report for the first time this year. Strengthening computing with power and boosting power through computing, while deepening AI-energy integration, is essential for cultivating new quality productive forces and building an energy powerhouse, he said.

The grid operator is accelerating pilot work on integrating electricity, carbon, and computing innovation. It has launched the nation's first electricity-carbon-computing coordination operation system and executed the first batch of related trades. Computing centers are also being positioned as virtual power plants in green electricity transactions, enabling two-way flow of energy and data.

At the meeting, work formally began on the industry standard for park-level carbon and energy management platform construction. Initiated by the China Electricity Council's big data and AI branch and approved by the National Energy Administration, the standard will provide scientific guidance for building, operating, and evaluating such platforms.

China Electricity Council Digital Intelligence Technology Company issued an initiative calling for data sharing and scenario co-building in power-sector data infrastructure. As the first national industry association to build and operate data infrastructure, the council aims to rally enterprises, research institutes, and universities to participate, unlocking the full value of power data.

The session also unveiled two outcomes: the Power AI Standards System and the Power AI Standards Large Model.