ADIPEC 2026: AI and Electrification Push Energy Infrastructure Spending

Energy companies and equipment makers used the second day of ADIPEC 2026 to argue that spending on electricity systems has to rise faster than demand. The warning covered generating capacity, transmission networks, storage and the industrial supply chain behind them.

Karim Badawi, Egypt's minister of petroleum and mineral resources, said no single country or company can meet global energy demand on its own, and that cooperation across borders is the only workable route to larger supplies.

Christian Bruch, chief executive of Siemens Energy, focused on where the equipment comes from. He called for more manufacturing close to the point of use, deliberate use of storage, and production spread across several regions so that a logistics failure in one corridor does not take down an energy system.

Olivier Blum of Schneider Electric pointed to factories switching to electric processes, cities expanding, and more electric vehicles on the road as reasons consumption keeps climbing. Meeting that requires new generation and better efficiency, he said.

Caspar Herzberg, chief executive of AVEVA, made a related point about data centres: the infrastructure built to run AI is growing quicker than the power infrastructure meant to support it, and coordination between the two is lagging.

Lorenzo Simonelli, chairman and chief executive of Baker Hughes, urged companies to buy from more than one source and to stop depending on a single supply route. AI, he added, will pull more demand into the system.

The through-line was timing. Demand from data centres and electrified industry arrives on a schedule set by chipmakers and utilities' customers, while new generation and transmission take years to permit and build. That gap, rather than the total volume of capital available, shaped the case each executive made.

On the sidelines, Badawi met Kevin McLachlan, Chevron's vice president of exploration, to go over the company's Egyptian offshore work. The petroleum ministry said the Nargis-2 well confirmed that gas-bearing formations found in Nargis-1 extend further, and also encountered an additional gas-bearing layer. Appraisal work continues to establish the size of the discovery and what development might look like.

Chevron holds interests in six offshore blocks in Egypt: Nargis, North Dabaa, Lotus, Northwest Atoll, North Simian and North Cleopatra. It works alongside Shell in those areas, according to the ministry.

Badawi said Cairo wants to shorten the time between discovery and appraisal, then identify development options that would lift domestic gas output. McLachlan described Egypt as central to Chevron's Eastern Mediterranean portfolio, citing its existing gas infrastructure.

Masroor Jilani, chief financial officer of Mubadala Energy, said resources and demand are both there. What determines returns, he said, is whether projects are delivered. Execution, in his telling, is what turns a gas find into revenue.

Wednesday, the third day, turns to AI, automation and advanced analytics as tools for improving energy infrastructure, with the technology that drove Tuesday's power discussion now examined as a way to run those systems better.