National Grid and Emerald AI Partner to Demonstrate AI Power Flexibility in the UK

National Grid and Emerald AI have partnered to demonstrate the working of AI data centers with the transmission network to adjust their energy use in real time, making better use of existing capacity to support the UK's growing digital needs.

The partners will deliver a live demonstration in the United Kingdom showcasing Emerald Conductor, an AI-powered system acting as a smart mediator between the grid and a data center, supporting flexible management of energy demand. The demonstration, slated for late 2025, will use NVIDIA GPUs, dynamically adjust energy consumption, and support grid stability.

By increasing the utilization of existing electricity infrastructure, National Grid, working with the National Energy System Operator, will be able to manage growing demand, attract investment in advanced computing, and support the UK's transition to a more efficient and flexible energy system.

National Grid Partners has also announced a strategic investment in Emerald AI.

The 2025 demonstration will showcase the role of a wide variety of AI workload types in real time. By changing computing activity when the grid is under pressure, the demonstration will show that AI data centers will be able to act as responsive partners to the electricity network while maintaining performance standards for mission-critical workloads.

The strategic partnership will also advance technical standards for AI data center flexibility, collaborate with customers to bring this capability to the growing pipeline of UK data centers, and promote broader industry collaboration through the NextGrid Alliance.