Grid or Gridlock?

The electrification of everything–from transport and manufacturing to AI and data centers– is pushing power grids to their limit. Across Southeast Asia and beyond, the pace of new energy demand is outstripping the capacity of existing infrastructure, threatening to bottleneck growth just as investment surges into clean tech and digital economies. And it’s not just about building more wires: it’s about building smarter, faster, and often across national borders. For ASEAN, where regional integration is essential to competing as a next-generation energy and data hub, the challenge is as much political as it is technical. Can countries coordinate quickly enough to deliver the grids the future demands? Or will ambition run straight into the hard limits of transmission?