Video walks through the awards event and cover story with a tee up of the trend feature. More to come!
Integrating Energy and AI in the November DCEO edition, November 1, 2026
Many people separate oil and gas from renewables and treat them as separate and opposing energy sources. But at the Energy Awards event Thursday night, it was clear that what the oil and gas industry does is imperative for the electrons needed in the future. It is an integrated enterprise, and it's a long game full of long-lived assets.
Now add the new large load: data centers and/or ‘AI compute campuses’. Some of these campuses are megaprojects unto themselves, with many moving parts.
Big tech, business and the public are using the capabilities AI creates: high-performance computing, LLMs, inference, agents, all of it. Big tech has different playbooks based on what each company does. Google is distinct from Amazon, which is distinct from Meta and Microsoft. You have to look at how each is using these capabilities, reducing costs, finding advantage and advancing its business.
These firms have long been considered asset light, but they're bumping up against the reality of asset-heavy investments.
November print version of the energy features:
a cover story featuring CEO Jim Burke of Vistra and a trends piece with CEO Wes Cummins of Applied Digital and others.
