Keynote-Olivier Blum

Thank you, Mr. Schneider, for your remarks. And ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome Mr. Olivier Blum, Global CEO, Schneider Electric. Schneider Electric sits at the intersection of two of the most pressing challenges of the AI era, energy efficiency and digital infrastructure. As data centers consume ever -growing share of global power, Olivier Blum is leading the company that is helping make that infrastructure sustainable. Please welcome the Global CEO of Schneider Electric, Mr. Olivier Blum.

Thank you very much. So, first of all, I’d like to congratulate the Prime Minister and the entire Indian government and all the associates for this beautiful event. This week has been tremendous. And that put together an ecosystem of stakeholders who are really moving technology to the next level. Now, I’d like to tell you a little bit about my own story. I landed in 2008. In 2007, in India, I was appointed at that point of time Managing Director of Schneider in India to develop Schneider Electric. And I discovered a country where the major issue was really access to power, access to reliable power. Now I am sitting in front of you, you know, I’m standing actually in front of you as a CEO of a global company, Schneider, almost 20 years later.

And guess what? What is the biggest problem of the planet? Access to reliable and clean power. So it’s not only the issue of India, it’s the issue of the worldwide planet. And we are just at the beginning of a new era because we are facing issues with access to power in many geographies. You heard many stories of problem of peak load in different geography, including the US where you have power cut. And we have not even started the era of AI. What AI changed to the world? AI means more compute, more compute means more energy. And we just don’t underestimate today. We don’t know exactly what is going to take, but that’s going to put the pressure on the energy system, which has nothing to do with what it is today.

So we know that energy is already a priority for government, for organizations everywhere in the world. It’s even a geopolitical topic. But we are entering a new era where AI could transform the planet. And since this morning, you have heard many, many speakers talking about how AI could impact our life, our businesses everywhere in the world. But the real question is, how we take the energy system to the next level and what AI can bring to make energy more efficient. So we do believe for a company like Schneider, it changed everything. Because we are the first time in the history of Schneider, after 190 years in the power sector, where we are at a point where we can connect the physical and the digital world.

And it was not possible before. Now, let me look back since 2015, what happened. In 2015, something very important happened in the world, which was the climate agreement, you know, the Paris Agreement, where… Well, I don’t know. The world has put a huge focus on energy. And if you remember at that point of time, a lot of people spent time on the supply, bringing clean energy everywhere in the world, which was great. But Schneider Electric was a very, very strong advocate to say, look, working on the supply is very important, but we have to spend even more time to work on the demand side, on how we make energy efficient. And guess what? In the past 10 years, companies like us, but not only, we’ve been really, really strong advocates that if we build a world which is more electric, if we build a world which is more electric and more digital, we might have a path really not only to decarbonize the planet, but to give access to energy everywhere in the world.

I think we’ve made good progress. We’ve made good progress, but it has been complicated because we faced a lot of resistance in the system. We faced resistance with poor grid actors. We faced resistance by companies implementing those new technologies. We know large companies don’t like necessarily to put all their data on the cloud. You know, they want to do it on purpose. Premise and so on. and so forth. But let’s make it clear, I don’t think all the technology we are ready everywhere in the world to make energy system much more efficient. So I think it has been a good journey in the sense that we’ve started really to electrify more and more in the world.

But I think we have just started to scratch the surface. Now, let me come to the topic of AI and the conference, and I will come back on energy. I’m sure you are aware that in any kind of report, we are talking about more than 200 gigawatts of capacity that needs to be built in data center in the next coming years, by 2030. We say usually that 50 % will be AI -driven, and we see the acceleration. For a company like Schneider, we see the acceleration since two years, and we started to see the acceleration when we built our partnership with NVIDIA, when we started really to understand the next generation of chips that will be used to NVIDIA.

For those who are not very familiar with what is a data center, we are talking, about a couple of years, about a couple of kilowatts per racks in the data center. Then we moved to 10, 20, 30. What we are building right now in India, it’s something which is already around 80 kilowatts per racks, even more. And what we are doing in the US right now with the GPU, which are available for NVIDIA, is already at 150. We are forcing a world with NVIDIA, where it can go to 500, to 1 megawatt. And that puts a tremendous pressure on the energy system that forces every single company to reinvent the energy system. I’m sure some of you have heard about the concept of 800 volt DCs, which are the new type of electrical architecture you will need to have for the data center of tomorrow that will be able to power the AI industry.

But again, I’m coming back. There is two phases of AI. There is one which is, there will be many, many new infrastructure that has to be built. But we have really to invent this next level of infrastructure to make sure that they can support what the AI would need. But the second part of the equation, which is even more exciting for me, is that probably we are entering in a new era where for the first time we can make energy more intelligent. But let’s be very realistic. There are a certain number of data from IEA which are telling that to support the global economy, the world will need another 10 ,000 terawatts of energy to be produced, of electricity to be produced between 2024 and 2035, and another 12 on top of that between 2035 and 2050.

When we are looking with our research team at Schneider Electric, we are building energy scenario. We believe that those scenarios don’t include what AI will bring to the planet. So the scenario in terms of electrification that you need for the planet is not about making usage more electrical and supporting the electrification of the planet for cars, for heat pumps, for electrification of process. What brings AI on top of that is another level of pressure on the energy system. And if you look at this conference, which has been great. We have learned a lot. We have spent a lot of time with great people. I’ve not heard enough about energy. And I’ve not heard enough about the need to make energy much more intelligent if you want to support the next AI journey.

Now, for a company like Schneider Electric, it’s really, really fascinating. We created the company 190 years ago. We have been a great company in the physical world. Ten years ago, and I mentioned the Paris Agreement, this is when we decided to make sure that every single asset that will connect, that will sell in the market, will have to be connectable. So we are entering a new era where all energy systems are connectable. And if we are able to apply all the great models, all the great foundational models, which have been built by a lot of partners with whom we are working, we can, for the first time in our history, connect the physical and the digital world.

And that’s what we call energy intelligence. And by doing so, we believe we can overcome many of the difficulties that we faced in the past 10 years to make energy systems more efficient. And by doing so, we believe we can overcome many of the difficulties that we faced in the past 10 years to make energy systems more efficient. That can eventually also solve one of the biggest problems of the planet, which is the climate transition. And by doing so, we believe we can overcome many of the difficulties that we faced in the past 10 years to make energy systems more efficient. because again it’s not only about clean energy it’s about more efficient and we believe we are entering in this new era where if we are able to connect system to collect data to apply foundational model that will connect the physical and the digital world we can save between 10 20 30 percent of energy consumption in every single application in the world and i’m just going to tell you and finish with one example think about your home you’re all sitting today in this conference or some of you are connected and while we are speaking there is a lot of energy consumption in your home tonight you will be back to your home you have an electrical panel somewhere in your home very likely your electrical panel is not connected today imagine a world tomorrow where every single connected if every single panel in the world electrical panel in a home will be connected imagine a world where you are able to extract data imagine a world where you can apply ai agent and where we can manage energy for you while you are not even in your home you can save again between 10, 20, 30 % of your energy consumption.

Actually, I can prove it. I’m testing it in my own home. So I’m telling you it works. Maybe you don’t know, but consumption of energy in home is the largest consumption of electricity in the world. So the good news, we are entering in a new era where we know that the world will be more electrical. And for the first time in our history, we can say that the world can become more electrical if we are able really to leverage the power of the new technology. And I will just finish by telling you that why I’m extremely pleased to be here in India, you know, almost 20 years after I started really my journey in this country, is because India has a lot of different factors which are very, very different than the rest of the world.

And what I’ve learned a lot by spending, you know, six years of my personal life in India, India is one of the countries where equipment is under tremendous pressure, more than in any other country. In the world. Point number two, India is an extremely cost -competitive country, where you need to bring the best innovation at the best price. Number three, the level of innovation. I know in India, some people say also Juga in India, but the level of creativity that you can have in India to create new systems that will solve the most complex problems of the planet can be done in this country. And when you look at the number of engineers you have in power, automation, digital, you have all the ingredients which are together at a point of time where we need to make AI a big transformation for the planet.

For a company like Schneider, I can tell you it’s not only words. India is the third largest country of Schneider Ethics in the world. This is the largest one in number of employees, 40 ,000 employees. You don’t know it, but this is the largest R &D center we have in the world with 8 ,000 employees. Largest number of software engineers. So I’m super excited because we are starting a new phase for the planet, a new technology revolution, which is called AI. where India can be the place where a lot of innovation starts with. I came to India, you know, 20 years ago where we are bringing a lot of product from outside. I think we are at a point of time where India can innovate the next technology that will make the world more efficient.

So we call that Schneider Electric Energy Intelligence. I’ve been very, very excited to be part of the summit. We’ve met a lot of people from government, from construction company, from technology company who have really this strong appetite to make sure that AI will bring progress for all and making sure that India can be at the center of that transformation. And I always say to my team, you know, because now I’m leading Schneider Electric globally, if you can crack the code in India, we’ll crack the code everywhere. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Mr. Bloom, for highlighting the technology. Thank you for highlighting all those facts which concern the power consumption. So far as AI is concerned,