Johan Vermij is a senior research analyst, supporting the IoT, Edge & Digital Industries practice at 451 Research from S&P Global Energy Horizons. He covers the digital transformation of the energy sector. Within his smart energy research, he covers power and utilities and oil and gas, as well as distributed energy resources, vehicle-to-grid integration and sustainability. Secondary research areas include operational technology security, the private spaceflight sector and autonomous robotics. As a Cambridge Institute of Sustainable Leadership (CISL) alumnus, he has a special interest in the role technology plays in sustainable innovation. Prior to joining S&P Global Market Intelligence, he worked as an IoT and security practitioner, managing innovation projects across multiple sectors including aerospace, government and finance.
Energy and utilities companies are scaling AI rapidly across both enterprise and operational use cases, with a particularly strong appetite for more autonomous modes of operation. However, this broad adoption is not translating cleanly into value. AI project delivery remains uneven, with mixed near-term ROI, data challenges limiting performance and higher project termination rates than other industries.
In the space category, dealmaking is now defined less by speculative acquisitions of technology players and more by purchases of strategic infrastructure. Constellations, spectrum rights, orbital filings, manufacturing assets and government relationships are increasingly viewed as critical assets.
The event showcased IFS' expanding platform, backed by new outcome-based licensing models. With customers reporting returns exceeding €10 million and 90,000 recovered working hours, the message was clear: Competitive advantage now belongs to those who can move at the speed of change, not just respond to it.
While billions flow into orbital computing and satellite constellations, Meta is taking a contrarian approach: not building data centers in space, but using solar energy to power terrestrial ones. Its agreement with Overview Energy is the first commercial offtake in the emerging space solar sector.
The vendor's NextGen platform target linear-asset industries with a purpose-built SaaS field service management suite combining AI-driven scheduling, augmented reality field collaboration, and embedded GIS — positioning it as a focused alternative to horizontal enterprise FSM vendors.
FCC filings from SpaceX, Blue Origin and Starcloud have injected genuine momentum into the orbital data center concept. However, the gap between spectrum positioning and commercially viable orbital compute remains large, and the scientific, environmental and engineering challenges have yet to be seriously answered.
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