Energy companies are increasing their investments in cybersecurity. (Image source: DNV)

Energy companies are boosting investment in cybersecurity, seeing it as the greatest current threat to their business, according to DNV Cyber’s latest Energy Cyber Priority report

Two in three energy professionals (65%) say their leadership views cybersecurity as the greatest current risk to their business, according to the report, with 71% expecting their company to increase investment in cybersecurity this year.

Energy companies are making progress in cybersecurity, with growing attention being paid to employee training and securing operational (OT systems). Challenges remain, however, as the energy transition creates new attack opportunities, threat actors become more sophisticated and digital technologies potentially increase exposure to cyber risk.

Of the 375 energy professionals surveyed globally for the research, three-quarters (75%) report that their organisation has stepped up the focus on cybersecurity because of growing geopolitical tensions over the last year, with the threat from cyber-criminal gangs and malicious insiders becoming increasing concerns.

“Achieving the energy transition is central to society at large. The whole energy sector – companies and governments alike – are working together on this massive challenge, which is increasingly complex because the technologies underpinning the transition are largely digital and scaling rapidly. With this comes cybersecurity risks,” said Ditlev Engel, CEO, Energy Systems at DNV. “Cybersecurity should be a priority for all players in the energy sector to achieve the climate goals and guarantee energy security, as geopolitics make the world more hostile and uncertain.”

“Even as the energy industry becomes more mature in its cybersecurity posture, it must continue to strengthen and adapt to remain resilient against a growing number of increasingly sophisticated threats. From attacks on supply chains, recruitment of malicious insiders, and the use of AI, adversaries are upping their game and the energy industry needs to keep up,” said Auke Huistra, director of Industrial and OT Cybersecurity at DNV Cyber.

Five challenges

DNV Cyber’s new report argues that energy companies must double their cybersecurity efforts to overcome five principal challenges:
• securing physical infrastructure, to protect against increasing attacks on OT Systems;
• overcoming complex cybersecurity supply chains, as threat actors go to suppliers and sub-suppliers to gain access to companies operating large assets, and 34% of those surveyed suspecting undisclosed breaches among their suppliers.
• increasing employee vigilance, as adversaries are constantly changing their approach and targeting employees with more sophisticated tactics
• embedding new skills in the workforce to prepare for more sophisticated attacks and address skills and knowledge gaps; and
• embracing AI: while 47% of cybersecurity professionals fear they will fall behind unless they harness AI, generative AI enables cyber criminals to launch more convincing scams. Two-thirds of energy professionals (66%) agree that attackers’ use of AI in phishing attacks has made it more difficult to determine whether emails are genuine. 

“To further strengthen their cybersecurity, energy companies should – as a priority – broaden their efforts to secure OT and support greater security and transparency in the supply chain,” said Huistra. “They should reset and redesign cyber’s relationship with the business, take a more innovative approach to training, and build understanding of AI.”

AI-driven solutions could hold the key to resolving carbon emissions. (Image source: MBZUAI)

MBZUAI is exploring various ways in which hardware-software co-design can reduce the energy consumption of artificial intelligence.

AI has huge potential to reduce waste and enhance efficiency across many sectors, including power and water distribution. While these topics are under the spotlight at the World Future Energy Summit, they are likely to be partly overshadowed by concerns about the enormous energy demands of AI systems.

But as well as consuming energy, AI-driven solutions could hold the key to resolving one of the most fundamental questions of our age – how can we keep developing and utilising powerful AI models while still moving towards carbon-free, sustainable economies?

Research currently being undertaken at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) takes a multi-pronged approach toward this challenge.

Hardware specialisation

One area of focus is Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). Traditional computing architectures such as CPUs are not always the most efficient for AI tasks, so GPUs and TPUs have emerged as specialised tools designed specifically for the parallel processing requirements of AI. These architectures are the building blocks of AI, with tens of thousands at work in data centres right now, and many more required for the new generation of data centres currently in development. To continue fueling the AI revolution, all these devices must conserve and limit energy usage, increasing processor performance with the minimal number of Joules possible.

Hardware specialisation holds the key. By manufacturing specialised AI hardware pipelines such as in GPUs or TPUs to be energy efficient, it will be possible to increase the energy efficiency of data centres at scale, even as they manage an ever-growing volume and complexity of calculations. The aim is to develop individual components in a co-designed way, so that energy consumption is reduced at the hardware level without impacting software performance.

Reliability and sustainability

As transistors continue to scale and become smaller, an important consideration is to ensure their reliability in the face of errors. Errors in hardware have been a thorn in the side of large-scale data centre companies such as Google and Meta . Yet building reliable processors can not only address energy efficiency but can further help build a sustainable future. The longer a manufactured processor can be utilised in a data centre (i.e., because of its reliability), the lower its carbon footprint due to the huge upfront cost of building these processors.

Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) offer another alternative, allowing for customisable hardware solutions tailored to specific AI tasks. By enabling developers to optimise circuits for applications, FPGAs can significantly reduce energy consumption while maintaining high performance.

Reducing waste

In parallel, MBZUAI is looking at ways to reduce waste and deploy resources more efficiently in the upper layers, building sustainability in the development and application of AI models. System software used for large language models, both training (to build the models) and inference (to use them), needs to work closely with the hardware design to achieve better energy efficiency.

Two lines in the current systems research done by MBZUAI researchers to this end strive toward AI sustainability. One is to improve the distributed model training through aggressive overlapping operators using heterogeneous resources within a GPU server, such as compute-intensive matrix multiplication ones with network-intensive communication ones. This way, we improve both overall performance and resource utilisation.

The other is to reduce the amount of computation in inference. Potential solutions in this direction examine efficient and scalable deployment of smaller, specialised models, as well as caching for model inference, where responses (or intermediate inference results leading to them) can be cached and reused in processing similar prompts.

This piece was authored by Xiaosong Ma, acting department chair and professor of computer science at MBZUAI, and Abdulrahman Mahmoud, assistant professor of computer science at MBZUAI. It has been edited for brevity. 

ADSW Summit 2025 to accelerate global sustainable development. (Image source: ADSW)

With an aim to leverage a US$10 trillion economic potential, Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW) 2025 will bring together 13 heads of state and more than 140 ministers, under the patronage of Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE 

With this year's theme being 'The Nexus of Next. Supercharging Sustainable Progress', the role of advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence will drive conversations at the ADSW Summit to be held from 14-15 January. 

Heads of state participating in the ADSW Summit include Ilham Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan; Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, President of Kazakhstan; William Ruto, President of Kenya; Bola Tinubu, President of Nigeria; Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda; Wavel Ramkalawan​, President of Seychelles; Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda; Shavkat Mirziyoyev, President of Uzbekistan; Edi Rama, Prime Minister of Albania; Petteri Orpo Prime Minister of Finland; Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister of Italy, and Anwar Ibrahim, Prime Minister of Malaysia.

"Under the theme, ‘The Nexus of Next: Supercharging Sustainable Progress’, ADSW 2025 invites you to discover the unprecedented socioeconomic opportunities that lie on the horizon and stand at the Nexus of Next. ADSW is not just a platform, but a bold call to action to explore and learn how interconnected systems are driving a new era of supercharged progress, unlocking endless possibilities to help build a better tomorrow for all,” said Sultan Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and Chairman of Masdar.

"ADSW Summit 2025 comes at a pivotal moment for accelerating global sustainable development, with technological advances providing unprecedented opportunities for social, environmental and economic progress. The ADSW Summit will serve as a foundational platform to drive the systemic change needed to take advantage of those opportunities, amplifying diverse voices to catalyze change through connection and accelerating the transformation to a more sustainable future. By bringing together leaders in policy, business and technology, ADSW Summit 2025 will unite the global community to deliver interconnected solutions for energy, economies, and the environment," said Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, Chief Executive Officer, Masdar.

Economic Integration Committee virtual meeting. (Image source: UAE Ministry of Economy)

The UAE Economic Integration Committee, led by H.E. Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri, Minister of Economy, convened its first meeting for 2025, with participation from H.E. Alia Bint Abdulla Al Mazrouei, Minister of State for Entrepreneurship, and local economic department directors.

The meeting reviewed 2024’s achievements, including significant contributions to legislative reforms, economic diversification, and enhancing the country’s business and investment climate.

The UAE’s economic performance in 2024 showcased progress in innovation-led growth. Non-oil GDP grew by 4.4% during H1 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, with non-oil sectors contributing 75% of the GDP by mid-year. These achievements underscore the Committee’s role in fostering collaboration between federal and local entities to harmonise economic legislation and align policies with global standards.

IP laws

Key accomplishments include the development of five new laws and four economic policies targeting critical sectors such as consumer rights, corporate governance, cooperatives, and anti-money laundering (AML). Initiatives to enhance intellectual property (IP) protection and support family businesses were also highlighted, contributing to the UAE’s global competitiveness.

In 2024, the Committee established seven task forces to enhance economic cooperation, implemented 79 recommendations—over 98% of which were successfully executed—and supported the UAE’s removal from the Financial Action Taskforce (FATF) grey list by strengthening AML measures.

Looking ahead, the Committee plans to further develop the IP ecosystem through initiatives such as ‘Instablock’ for copyright protection and ‘IP Finance’ to help startups access funding using intangible assets. These efforts aim to position the UAE as a leader in innovation, supporting the ‘We the UAE 2031’ vision and bolstering its knowledge economy and emerging sectors.