As artificial intelligence and data-centre growth place new pressure on power systems around the world, USP&E is bringing AI-powered digital twin technology to African power projects – not as an imported off-the-shelf tool, but as a platform built around the realities of operating on the continent.
At Africa Energy Forum 2026 in Cape Town, USP&E demonstrated the latest update to its USP&E SmartPower AI digital-twin platform: a live, data-driven software model of an operating power plant, built on the company’s own multi-country African fleet data. The demonstration showed how real-time AI can help power developers, utilities, mines, data-centre operators and lenders improve visibility, predict failures earlier, optimise fuel use and make more confident decisions before and after construction.
Digital-twin technology is not new – it is under active development across the global energy and technology industries. What is distinctive is USP&E’s vantage point: the company works today with some of North America’s largest frontier AI labs and hyperscale technology companies, at the front edge of the global AI buildout. That work is now shaping how USP&E brings the same class of capability home to its own African projects, customised completely for conditions the original tools were never designed to face: remote sites on satellite connectivity, 45-degree ambients, variable fuel quality, high altitude, and multi-fuel, multi-OEM fleets that often include used and remanufactured equipment.
