AI is rapidly becoming the backbone of modern business, just as energy has emerged as a key enabler of economic growth. In data centers and other critical infrastructure, the acceleration of compute-hungry AI workloads creates immense power demands — straining electrical grids and impacting availability. If supply or generation capacity fails to keep pace, this rising demand may push up wholesale energy prices. In the end, an entire building environment must significantly reduce energy waste and be more energy efficient.
On average, 30% of the energy used in commercial buildings is wasted, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. But despite the trillions of dollars invested into buildings and infrastructure each year, there are serious energy and efficiency gaps:
- Facilities operators need unified control to overcome costly inefficiencies and downtime, yet systems are siloed and disconnected.
- A technical workforce that holds deep domain knowledge is aging out, and there aren’t enough skilled engineers to replace them.
- Current infrastructure is typically designed to live for decades, hindering the investment in and/or adoption of new technologies.
According to estimates, 12% of US electricity could be consumed by data centers by 2028. Industrial electricity demand is projected to surge by 15% in 2026. And 70% of US transmission lines are over 25 years old with many nearing the end of their life cycle. The time to meet the moment is now.
The solution: A scalable, unified platform powered by AI
To overcome these challenges, building infrastructure systems must monitor energy consumption at a granular level. In doing so, consumption can be optimized in real time across mechanical and electrical loads in every facility. This entails intelligent orchestration of energy sources — grid, solar, wind, backup systems, and others — alongside heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting, servers, and electrical panel loads.
However, this is easier said than done. Real-time monitoring must be continually supervised by a central entity that has end-to-end visibility — from mechanical to electrical. It needs the ability to map energy usage across all loads and then dynamically manage the demand response in an intelligent way. This is where Schneider Electric comes into the picture, with a solution that provides:
- Predictive maintenance that helps prevent downtime and maximizes efficiency and resilience, powered by AI.
- Modular, built-in domain expertise with pre-integrated applications that enable operators to manage, optimize, and orchestrate operations.
- Intuitive, unified platforms that equip the next generation of operators in a software-defined world.
- Optimized energy use that preserves investments in legacy equipment.
- Reliable infrastructure that provides uninterrupted operations in mission-critical environments like data centers, hospitals, and pharmaceutical campuses.
EcoStruxure™ Foresight: Building a future-ready infrastructure
Schneider Electric is on the forefront of energy and technology, leading the convergence of electrification, automation, and digital intelligence. With EcoStruxure™ Foresight, Schneider delivers a transformative operations platform for the built environment, making a new energy landscape possible.
EcoStruxure™ Foresight unifies electrical and mechanical systems with AI-powered analytics — effectively extracting more performance from the same footprint. Operators benefit from a single software platform that anticipates failures, prevents downtime, and maximizes efficiency. At its core the platform comprises four key capabilities:
- Next-level operational efficiency: Delivered through a unified platform eliminating blind spots and simplifying control. This boosts efficiency by up to 50%.
- Maximized uptime and resilience: Enabled with complete built-in redundancy and AI diagnostics, all safeguarded by a robust, secure platform. Interrelated electrical and mechanical issues are resolved 90% faster.
- Future-ready scalability: Supporting millions of connected points with an open architecture across multisite and global operations.
- Faster deployment: An open, flexible platform with pre-integrated built-in domains is ready to go from day one. And AI-powered engineering transforms hours of work into minutes, saving up to 50% in engineering time and 500 hours during setup of large systems.
The bottom line
It’s time to act. Modeling by the Schneider Electric Sustainability Research Institute indicates that the US alone must add 1,000–2,000 TWh of electricity every decade to meet surging demand driven by AI, manufacturing, and electrification. This means 1,000 TWh must be added within the coming decade—starting now.
Distributed generation, digital efficiency, and flexible infrastructure are proven solutions that will shape the economic future. And Schneider Electric is leading the convergence of electrification, automation, and digital intelligence with EcoStruxure™ Foresight, an operations platform that delivers new levels of visibility and predictive insights at scale.
EcoStruxure™ Foresight will be more widely available to early adopter customers in Q3 2026. Learn more here.
About the author: In his role as SVP of Digital Buildings at Schneider Electric, Sadiq Syed is focused on delivering solutions that drive sustainability and operational efficiency for large enterprises and small and midsize buildings across industry segments.
