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Electric Companies Prepare Year-Round to Strengthen Grid for Severe Weather

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Industry experts on the frontlines of emergency response share how they serve customers in their communities — watch the new video

WASHINGTON, June 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — As hurricane season begins and wildfire risks increase across the country, America’s electric companies are preparing to respond to extreme weather events that can cause power outages.

 

“We know extreme weather will continue to impact communities across the country—the question is not if, but when,” said Jennifer DeCesaro, senior vice president of industry operations at the Edison Electric Institute (EEI). “Electric companies prepare year-round—investing in stronger infrastructure, deploying new technologies, and coordinating across the industry to enable a rapid, safe response when severe weather strikes.”

New video: Hear directly from experts on the frontlines of emergency response across the country about how they prepare for and respond to hurricanes, wildfires, and other extreme weather events. The video features leaders from ComEd, Entergy, Georgia Power, Hawaiian Electric, and National Grid.

Investing in a More Resilient Grid

The grid has remained strong and stable over time, with most power outages—about 80 percent— caused by severe weather, according to a new analysis from Concentric Energy Advisors (CEA). The electric power industry is focused on reducing those impacts and restoring power safely and as quickly as possible when storms occur.

EEI’s member companies are investing at historic levels—nearly $1.4 trillion over the next five years—to strengthen the grid and make it more resilient to extreme weather. According to the report, roughly 21–33 percent of transmission and distribution investment is specifically directed toward resilience and hardening. That includes burying outage-prone power lines, replacing wooden poles with stronger steel and concrete structures, elevating substations against flooding, and trimming trees near power lines to prevent storm-related outages.

Data-Driven Response Efforts

Data, technology, and advanced forecasting tools are transforming how electric companies prepare for and respond to severe weather. Days before a storm, electric companies use damage prediction models and weather analytics to pinpoint likely impacts and determine where to position crews, equipment, and materials.

“With the smart technology, we’re able to make decisions quickly,” said Drew Thompson, program manager of workforce strategies at Entergy.

Electric companies are deploying sensors, real-time monitoring platforms, and grid-enhancing technologies that provide continuous visibility into system conditions and support more informed decision-making during extreme weather events.

Across the industry, companies are also leveraging drones equipped with AI-powered cameras, automated diagnostic tools, and smart grid technologies to inspect infrastructure, identify issues before they cause outages, and reduce restoration times. In the West, member companies are also deploying AI-enabled cameras to detect wildfires earlier, helping first responders act faster.

Mutual Assistance

A hallmark of the electric power industry is mutual assistance—the long-standing tradition of mobilizing resources to help support communities in need.

Ahead of major storms and other natural disasters, electric companies coordinate to identify resource needs and position additional personnel, equipment, and supplies to expedite power restoration. This preparation helps enable a safe, organized, and rapid response in affected communities.

Created decades ago, EEI’s mutual assistance network provides a formal yet flexible process for electric companies to request support from companies in other parts of the country not affected by major outages. EEI and its member companies also conduct exercises throughout the year to test and strengthen the system in the event of widespread disruptions.

“In the event of a very large storm, then we may call on our neighboring utility to come and help us out, so that we can restore safely and with the right number of resources,” said David Bunge, senior manager of emergency preparedness at ComEd.

“We’re not in it alone,” said Stephanie Gossman, general manager of planning and policy at Georgia Power. “That’s one of the things I love about America’s electric companies, and the fact that we work together across this industry to tackle challenges, including getting the lights back on.”

How Customers Can Prepare Now

Customers also play an important role in preparing for severe weather. Taking the following steps now can help improve safety and readiness:

Visit www.ready.gov to learn how to plan, prepare, and act in your community.

Review EEI’s hurricane safety tips and wildfire safety tips and keep an emergency outage kit stocked and readily available.

Develop an emergency plan, including arrangements for any special medical needs or evacuation support.

Stock up on non-perishable food, water, medications, and other necessities, and monitor local weather reports on radio, television, and online.

Make sure your contact information is current with your local electric company so you can receive status and safety updates during an emergency.

EEI is the association that represents all U.S. investor-owned electric companies. Our members provide safe, reliable electricity for nearly 250 million Americans, and operate in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Collectively, the electric power industry supports more than 7 million jobs in communities across the United States and drives economic growth and prosperity. EEI also includes hundreds of industry suppliers and related organizations as Associate Members.

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SOURCE Edison Electric Institute

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WinWire Earns Microsoft Frontier Partner Status, Strengthening Its Position as a Leader in Enterprise AI Adoption

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June 26, 2026

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This recognition reflects WinWire’s commitment to delivering secure, scalable AI solutions using Microsoft technology.

HYDERABAD, India, June 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — WinWire (part of NTT DATA), a Microsoft partner specializing in Agentic AI, data engineering, and cloud-native development, today announced it has earned the Frontier Partner badge within the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. This recognition places WinWire among a select group of partners Microsoft trusts to lead enterprise AI transformation, delivering AI-first solutions across the Microsoft Cloud.

The Frontier Partner badge recognizes partners that demonstrate advanced AI-driven capabilities and meet rigorous badge requirements at the time of recognition. This achievement reflects WinWire’s ability to deliver meaningful customer impact using Microsoft technologies such as Agentic AI, Azure, and Power Platform.

WinWire achieved this recognition by demonstrating deep expertise across Agentic AI and Microsoft Cloud, combined with a strong track record of customer success. The company has consistently delivered measurable business outcomes for enterprise clients in Healthcare & Life Sciences and Software and Digital Platforms, applying advanced capabilities across AI, cloud, data engineering, and modern workplace.

“Achieving the Microsoft Frontier Partner badge is a testament to the exceptional work our team does in helping organizations deploy AI @ Scale to drive business outcomes rather than AI experimentation,” said Ashu Goel, CEO, WinWire. “This badge reflects the strength of our collaboration with Microsoft and our commitment to delivering AI-first, secure, and scalable solutions that drive measurable ROI for our clients.”

“Earning the Frontier Partner badge is a testament to a partner’s deep AI capability and focus on customer success,” said Julie Sanford, Vice President, Partner GTM, Programs & Operations for Global Channel Partner Sales at Microsoft. “We’re proud to work alongside WinWire whose expertise and execution sets up organizations to modernize and thrive.”

To earn the Frontier Partner badge, WinWire met multiple Microsoft Solutions Partner designations and advanced specializations, demonstrating comprehensive expertise across Microsoft technologies.

Solutions Partner Designations:

Modern WorkDigital and App InnovationInfrastructureData and AISecurity

Advanced Specializations:

Microsoft CopilotAI Application and Platform InnovationData Security

This recognition confirms WinWire’s ability to build and deploy AI-first, cloud-native solutions that address the real-world challenges modern organizations face, from accelerating innovation to reinforcing security posture. WinWire’s key capabilities that contributed to this achievement include:

Building and deploying AI agents for business functions using Microsoft Foundry, Copilot Studio, and Microsoft 365 Copilot.Leveraging AI frameworks and accelerators to scale AI from pilot to production – delivering business value across the enterprise.Implementing Responsible AI principles and governance guardrails to ensure secure, compliant, and ethical AI deployments.

At the core of WinWire’s delivery model is its Agentic AI @ Scale framework, which enables the design and deployment of intelligent, autonomous systems embedded directly into enterprise workflows. From deploying Microsoft Copilot and building AI-powered applications to modernizing data estates and strengthening security posture, WinWire helps organizations confidently transition from AI experimentation to enterprise-scale adoption with speed and precision.

About WinWire

WinWire (part of NTT DATA) unleashes the Power of Agentic AI to deliver innovative solutions that help our customers gain competitive advantage. WinWire is at the forefront of enabling enterprises to embark on a transformative Agentic AI journey.

As a globally recognized, multi-award-winning Agentic AI firm, WinWire delivers a spectrum of AI-led digital transformational services that include:

Agentic AI Services: Harness the power of Agentic AI to accelerate the Frontier Firm Journey.Foundational AI Services: Data Estate & BI Modernization for AI-ready data.Operational AI Services: Manage, optimize, and evolve agents and enterprise applications leveraging Agentic AI systems to reduce costs & enhance agility.

Visit us at: www.winwire.com

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View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/winwire-earns-microsoft-frontier-partner-status-strengthening-its-position-as-a-leader-in-enterprise-ai-adoption-302810552.html

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Tuya Smart Co-Founder Alex Yang at Summer Davos 2026: The Future of AI Competition Lies in Real-World Applications

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June 26, 2026

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DALIAN, China, June 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The 17th Annual Meeting of the New Champions (AMNC, also known as “Summer Davos”) of the World Economic Forum was held from June 23 to 25 at the Dalian International Conference Center. Alex Yang, Co-Founder, COO, and CFO of Tuya Smart (NYSE: TUYA; HKEX: 2391), was invited to participate in multiple sessions, including “China’s Lobster Fever,” “AI and Future Growth,” and “Owning the Interface: Strategy in the Age of AI Agents,” where he shared his perspectives on the evolving global AI landscape and the future of innovation at scale.

Under the theme of “Innovating at Scale,” the forum convened more than 1,700 leaders and innovators from government, business, and academia across over 90 countries and regions to explore how artificial intelligence, industrial digitalization, and emerging innovation models are reshaping economic growth and technology adoption.

A New Phase of Global AI Innovation

Breakthroughs in foundation models and AI agents are accelerating the rise of artificial intelligence as a new frontier of global technological competition. China’s AI industry and technology enterprises have drawn growing international attention through rapid commercialization and extensive application scenarios. Reflecting this momentum, AI and digital transformation were among the most discussed topics at Summer Davos, with sessions exploring topics such as the boundaries of AI-first enterprises and the implications of increasingly autonomous cross-border AI agents.

Behind China’s “Lobster Fever”

The widespread adoption of AI tools was among the forum’s defining themes. During the session “China’s Lobster Fever,” Yang joined Cathy Li, Head of AI, Data and Metaverse at the World Economic Forum, and S. Alex Yang, Professor of Management Science and Operations at London Business School, to discuss the factors driving China’s rapid AI adoption and innovation.

Yang noted that China’s ability to achieve large-scale AI adoption is the result of several reinforcing advantages.

“First, the country has a vast number of developers who are actively exploring and building AI applications. Second, both individuals and businesses have demonstrated a remarkable openness for exploring and testing new technologies. More fundamentally, the strong aspiration across society for development and progress has become a powerful intrinsic driver of AI innovation.”

“At Tuya, we are dedicated to bringing AI into various real-world industry scenarios,” Yang added. “In the smart home sector, we lower the barriers to building AI-native products through standardized AI modules and an active developer community. In the energy sector, our AI solutions span the entire energy lifecycle—from generation and transmission to storage and consumption. By integrating real-time and dynamic electricity pricing data from more than 800 utility companies across Europe, our platform can intelligently optimize energy loads and help users efficiently reduce overall energy costs.”

Commenting on the commercialization of AI, Yang noted that the industry is shifting “from traditional usage-based pricing models toward an outcome-driven value-based pricing model.” He added, “For enterprises, the winners of the AI era will be those that not only adopt AI technologies early but also build AI-native organizations and talent.”

Advancing Global AI Applications Through an Open Developer Ecosystem

During Summer Davos, Yang also gave interviews to major global media outlets including CNBC, Bloomberg, and CGTN, sharing his views on the commercialization of AI applications, developer ecosystem development, and the large-scale deployment of AI hardware.

He emphasized that in an era of rapid technological change and accelerating industrial transformation, open innovation is essential to sustaining long-term competitiveness. Looking ahead, Tuya will continue to deepen its focus on AI Home, AI Energy, and AI Robot applications, working with global developers and ecosystem partners to advance AI from technological breakthroughs to large-scale deployment.

About Tuya Smart

Tuya Inc. (NYSE: TUYA; HKEX: 2391) is a leading global AI cloud platform service provider dedicated to bringing AI into everyday life. Through its TuyaOpen open-source development framework and universal AI Agent engines, including the AI Agent development platform, Tuya integrates multimodal AI capabilities to lower barriers for AI development, efficiently advancing the realization of AI-driven lifestyles and accelerating AI integration with the physical world. Tuya offers innovative physical AI solutions for smart devices, commercial applications, and industry developers through its cloud computing and spatial intelligence capabilities. It also provides a complete, open, and neutral global AIoT ecosystem.

As of Mar 31, 2026, the Tuya AI Developer Platform had over 1,970,000 registered AI developers from more than 200 countries and regions.

 

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SOURCE Tuya Smart

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KITABOO Converts a Textbook PDF Into a Working Student Simulation in Ten Minutes, With No Human Involvement

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June 26, 2026

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MUMBAI, India, June 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Ten minutes is all it takes for KITABOO’s new AI capability to analyze a standard textbook PDF, isolate the exact concept students struggle with most, and engineer an interactive simulation around that specific learning friction point.

This automated pipeline instantly transforms flat text into an active digital environment: a physics chapter becomes a pendulum a student can control; an algebra lesson shifts into a digital balance scale; and a biology unit evolves into an ecosystem where students manipulate variables to observe cause and effect. The final output is delivered via a single, shareable URL that anyone can access instantly—no user accounts or logins required.

Publishers globally are sitting on years of curriculum content in PDF format. The quality of that content has never been the problem. The production cost of converting it into something genuinely interactive has been. A full conversion project has historically required a specialist team, a vendor engagement, and months of time. Most publishers have done the math and deprioritised it.

KITABOO’s new capability removes that constraint. By introducing an end-to-end automated pipeline, the platform allows publishers to bypass traditional development bottlenecks:

The AI instantly reads any uploaded PDF chapter, determines grade appropriateness, and targets core conceptual friction points.Without any human involvement between upload and output, the system builds tailored, subject-specific simulations using the publisher’s own material.The final interactive asset is delivered via a shareable URL, requiring no logins or user accounts for student access.

“K12 publishers have spent years building content that students deserve to actually interact with,” said Darshit Shah, K12 Lead at KITABOO. “What took a team and a production budget now takes ten minutes. That changes who can afford to go digital, and when.”

The timing matters. In the US, emergency federal education funding that kept many publisher production pipelines running ended in 2024. In Europe, governments are mandating digital transitions and accessibility compliance, while publishers are expected to absorb the cost from existing resources. The publishers who find a faster, lower-cost path to interactive content this year will be positioned for the adoption windows ahead. Those who wait are extending a gap that is already widening.

Publishers who want to test this with their own content can do so at: kitaboo.com/turn-textbook-into-interactive-learning

About KITABOO

KITABOO is a digital publishing and learning platform. The platform enables K12 publishers, educational institutions, and content providers to create, distribute, secure, and measure digital content across web and mobile platforms. KITABOO serves publishers in more than 25+ countries, supporting over six million active users across 7,000 school districts.

For more information, visit https://kitaboo.com.

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