The energy transition is rewriting the rules of infrastructure management. As renewable generation expands and electricity systems grow more distributed and variable, the ability to anticipate weather with precision has moved from operational convenience to strategic necessity. Wind and solar generation are inherently weather-dependent. Grid operators, infrastructure planners, and energy managers need to work with environmental data at a depth and speed that traditional numerical forecasting methods were not designed to support.
BKW, an international energy and infrastructure company rooted in Switzerland, recognized this inflection point early. Guided by a purpose captured in the statement Wir machen Lebensräume lebenswert (creating living spaces worth living in), BKW plans, builds, operates, and optimizes infrastructure supporting the energy transition and resilient communities across Europe. To meet this moment, BKW began working with Microsoft Energy & Resources Industry, bringing together enterprise cloud infrastructure, geospatial intelligence platforms, and advanced AI weather models developed by Microsoft Research AI for Science and Microsoft AI Weather. The collaboration is designed not as a standalone experiment, but as the foundation of a new, scalable approach to working with complex environmental and energy data.