The upcoming India AI Impact Summit will arrive at a critical juncture in India’s AI journey. India is looking to position itself as an AI leader in the Global South, while also looking to attract investments in technology. Beyond capital, high-end GPUs demand highly specialised data centre infrastructure, including advanced cooling systems—facilities that typically take 12–18 months to design and build, adding further complexity to India’s AI readiness roadmap.
While GPU availability remains a structural challenge, an equally urgent priority is now emerging energy. The conversation has moved beyond simple capacity expansion to a more sophisticated focus on system-level intelligence, coordination, and resilience.
At the centre of this transformation is the proposed India Energy Stack (IES), a national digital architecture for the power sector designed on the same principles that made UPI a transformative force in digital payments.
In 2025, the Ministry of Power launched a task force to conceive the India Energy Stack, to create a unified, secure, and interoperable digital infrastructure for India's energy sector.
What is IES?
Talking to AIM at the sidelines of the AI Impact Summit Working Group meeting in Bengaluru, Shashank Misra, joint secretary, Ministry of Power, says the India Energy Stack was created to solve one core problem—fragmentation.
The IES will create a unified digital foundation for the power ecosystem by enabling unique digital identities for consumers, assets, and transactions, facilitating real-time, consent-based data sharing, and providing open APIs for seamless system integration across utilities, markets, and platforms.
“Indian Energy Stack was aimed at handling the problem statement wherein we have disparate systems working in the power sector, which are not communicating to each other, and the aim was to make the systems communicate to each other and develop the best potential out of it,” Misra explains.
While generation and transmission systems are already integrated, the challenge lies in distribution—especially with the rapid rise of distributed renewable energy resources such as rooftop solar, battery storage, EVs, and EV charging infrastructure. “It is now much needed that these systems communicate,” he adds.
The India Energy Stack is designed to enable this interoperability and unlock new economic models. One of the most important use cases under development is peer-to-peer energy trading.
“That would essentially mean that the energy becomes a new currency…instead of trading money, the trading can happen in the energy,” he notes.
Beyond peer-to-peer trading, the platform is also being designed to support distribution asset management systems, digital twins, and demand-side flexibility, with multiple use cases expected to be launched, starting in February.
Industry collaboration is already underway through hackathons and startup engagement to build real-world solutions on the India Energy Stack architecture.
Preparing the Grid
With India’s digital infrastructure expanding rapidly, energy demand is projected to rise sharply—from 277 GW today to nearly 365 GW by 2031–32, according to the 20th Electric Power Survey.
Addressing concerns around grid stress, Misra explains that the strategy is anchored in open access, captive power models, green energy open access, and resource adequacy planning, combined with AI-driven demand-side management.
“With the use of AI, with the use of these Indian energy stacks…there would be such solutions which would be coming up in a cost-effective manner which would help the distribution company effectively manage their demand,” he mentions.
He adds that consumers will become active participants in the energy ecosystem.
They will get more insights into their consumptions patterns, and AI agents would help them better manage their load and consumption.
IES is also designed to enable aggregator models, where energy demand is pooled and traded collectively—similar to mutual fund structures—creating new earning opportunities for consumers while stabilising grid demand.
Industry Perspective
Supporting this view, Amit Sarin, MD, Anant Raj Limited, highlights that power availability will not be a constraint for India’s digital economy.
“With an additional 3.38 lakh MW expected by 2032, data centres are likely to account for just 2–3% of total installed capacity, ensuring that power availability remains strong,” Sarin believes.
He describes the IES as a national digital backbone.“Much like UPI transformed payments, bringing standardisation, transparency, and coordination across the energy ecosystem,” he says.
Biswajeet Mahapatra, Principal Analyst, Forrester, also notes IES’ role in preventing grid stress.“The energy stack can help prevent localised grid stress by giving utilities real-time visibility into demand, enabling dynamic load management, and coordinating distributed resources such as renewables and storage.”
Similarly, Rishik Teepireddi, VP of business strategy and renewable energy, CtrlS Datacentres, says, “Such a unified framework can help prevent localised grid stress from high-density computing clusters by making power demand visible, predictable, and controllable in real time.”
He stresses that grid modernisation must shift from incremental upgrades to a mission-mode transformation by deploying AI-driven forecasting and prioritising round-the-clock (RE RTC) models that ensure frequency stability and firm dispatchable power.
Energy as Strategic Enabler
Together, these perspectives converge on a single idea: India is not just adding megawatts—it is building intelligence into the grid itself. With smart meters, grid automation, open APIs, AI-driven forecasting, and digital consent layers, the IES will lay the foundation for a future where energy becomes programmable, tradable, and intelligently managed.
As Misra notes, the goal is not just infrastructure growth, but system transformation. He says, “Now the systems can communicate, now the systems can talk to each other…not just within the distribution company but across the distribution companies…across the nation.”
The India AI Impact Summit 2026 is scheduled to be held on February 19 and 20, with the aim to shape AI as a strategic enabler of India’s national development priorities. Two of the country’s most significant AI initiatives, Sarvam AI and BharatGen, are set to launch their foundational models ahead of the summit, as confirmed earlier to AIM by Abhishek Singh, CEO of the IndiaAI Mission.
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