Itron, Inc. today announced a collaboration with NVIDIA to address the industry’s most pressing challenges by accelerating the adoption of AI-powered solutions at the grid edge for utilities and communities.
The collaboration combines Itron’s Grid Edge Intelligence portfolio with NVIDIA’s AI-powered solutions, integrating high-fidelity, real-time data to transform how utilities meet the demands of a rapidly changing industry. Itron will collaborate with NVIDIA to develop solutions for utilities to reach their goals, including grid resilience, disaster management and prevention, consumer engagement, operational efficiency, the secure delivery of affordable energy to customers, and challenges yet unknown.
Itron, which has delivered over 13 million distributed intelligence-enabled endpoints globally, will work with NVIDIA to provide better outcomes for utilities. By integrating the NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano and NVIDIA AI Enterprise platforms into Itron’s Grid Edge Intelligence portfolio, the companies will enable utilities to leverage the edge computing power of NVIDIA’s solutions for AI tasks, helping to optimize utility operations. This collaboration will bring greater value for utilities and unlock new opportunities to enhance grid resiliency and accelerate decarbonization initiatives by leveraging the power of data at the grid edge.
Itron’s Grid Edge Intelligence portfolio includes a diverse range of solutions such as demand response, distributed energy resource management and planning, managed services, and more. NVIDIA will play a critical role in enhancing these solutions with AI. By integrating NVIDIA accelerated computing at the grid edge, utilities are able to extract more actionable insights for improved performance. Itron collects data from hundreds of millions of endpoints every day, and with this collaboration, NVIDIA’s AI platform can help transform how the vast amount of data can be turned into intelligent, real-time information for utility users.
By lowering the barrier to AI adoption, utilities can primarily benefit from these additional use cases:
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Grid Optimization—Enables utilities to better manage energy distribution more efficiently and reduce energy losses at the edge.
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Energy Demand Forecasting—Edge computing AI analyzes data previously collected from customers and weather patterns to predict energy demand accurately, helping to reduce blackouts and transformer overload.
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Real-Time Data Processing—Allows utilities to gain immediate insights into operations to make quicker and more informed decisions.
“Innovation is at the forefront of Itron, and we continue to seek new ways to help our customers to improve their operations. As we embark on this AI journey with NVIDIA, we are excited to join forces with an industry pioneer and leader. Together, we aim to support our customers in streamlining their operations with edge computing AI. Itron and NVIDIA are committed to combining their expertise to benefit utilities and municipalities in the energy, water, gas, and smart city industry through AI,” said Don Reeves, Itron’s senior vice president of Outcomes.
“With AI at the edge of the grid, utilities can modernize legacy grid infrastructure, scale renewable energy, and deliver lower costs to their customers. AI-enabled endpoints and other grid infrastructure are the future, and building a software-defined smart grid better positions utilities for the energy transition while supporting their decarbonization goals, increasing grid reliability, and ensuring energy equity. We are ushering in a new era of global innovation for utilities with our AI solutions and are excited to work with an industry leader like Itron in revolutionizing the way AI is used within the utility industry,” said Marc Spieler, NVIDIA’s Sr. Managing Director of Energy.
NVIDIA’s AI platform will enhance Itron’s existing Grid Edge Intelligence Platform, meter data management, forecasting, advanced metering infrastructure analytics, grid planning, grid operations, and demand management software solutions.
To accelerate delivery to its customers, Itron and NVIDIA will leverage ecosystem partners. More details and information about Itron and NVIDIA’s collaboration will be available soon.
To learn more about how Itron is driving safety improvements and proactively addressing risks with AI, click here.
Visit Itron at booth #3008 at DISTRIBUTECH, March 25-27, in Dallas, Texas, to learn more about the use cases this collaboration aims to address.
