As energy demand surges, tech giants are stepping up as key partners to utilities navigating a rapidly changing grid. At CERAWeek 2026, Bryce Yonker explored this topic speaking with Hannah Green, Global Operations &amp; GTM Leader for Energy &amp; Resources at Microsoft, and Rayford Smith, Global Head of Power and Energy for Cloud at Google. They detailed how digital infrastructure, the cloud and AI are reshaping how utilities plan and operate the grid. From faster forecasting to smarter operations, these technologies are unlocking new efficiencies. But as new tech become embedded in critical infrastructure, building trust through strong governance, transparency and accountability is increasingly essential. Listen in to understand the evolving dynamic between these two mission-critical industries and the path to &quot;getting it right.&quot;

Why Tech Giants Must Build Trust as Well as Tools to Advance the Grid

GridPulse, a Grid Forward podcast

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** GridPulse, a Grid Forward podcast

## Transcript

Welcome to the next edition of GridPulse. I'm Bryce Yonker with Grid Forward. We're recording live here from Houston at Sarah Week and we have two fantastic guests with us, Hannah Green from Microsoft and Rayford Smith from Google. Hannah, good to have you on. Thank you so much for having me, Bryce. It's so good to be here with you, Rayford and Sarah Week. It's a big, busy week and a great time to have this conversation.

You guys can probably hear the buzz behind us, so it'll be a little bit of a different background than we're used to having. Rayford, maybe we'll start with you. Obviously, you're there at Google, but maybe you can give us a bit of a background about yourself, what you're doing, what led you there to that role. Sure. So hi, Rayford Smith. I'm the global head of power and energy for Google Cloud. So I'm responsible for all our power and energy offerings in AI and cloud and whatnot for us globally. It's an exciting time to be in this space.

I've been in the industry for 36 years, which I don't usually tell people in polite company, but I've been around for quite a while and I've never seen the amount of excitement, all the transformation and frankly, all the things we can do with all of this. And so that's what led me back to Google. I got recruited to come back and lead this vertical and I can't got to tell you, it's an awesome place to be. All right, Hannah, over to you. Maybe you can give us a bit of background on yourself and what led you to that role at Microsoft.

Absolutely. I lead our global go-to-market and innovation group for energy and resources, which at Microsoft includes our oil and gas, power and utilities and mining groups. I'm also a very proud Grid Forward board member. So very happy to be here for this conversation. My team works with energy companies globally really to translate their ambitions around technology and today specifically AI into execution.

So we see ourselves, everybody on our team comes from the energy industry, but we're deeply versed in technology and how do we cross that bridge and be strong partners with the industry to make that innovation come to life while respecting the very specific needs that our energy customers have. I know the listeners can't see this, but it feels a bit like the paparazzi were being video recorded and photographed here. They're really here for you, Bryce. Red carpet moment, Rayford.

Rayford, I'll let you start on our first question here. What energy and grid priorities do you guys have at the top of the list and how are you all working with your partners to make those happen? Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing that we're focusing on is, you know, how do we expand to meet the demands of our customers, right? So that's a lot of infrastructure that needs to be developed. But the exact same time, like I view the AI story is the good news story of this space.

A lot of the capabiliti...

Why Tech Giants Must Build Trust as Well as Tools to Advance the Grid

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.

Why Tech Giants Must Build Trust as Well as Tools to Advance the Grid

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.