Cemig (Companhia Energética de Minas Gerais) launched EnergyGPT, the 1st AI (artificial intelligence) platform in Latin America dedicated to the electricity sector, during participation in SXSW (South by Southwest) 2026, the largest innovation festival in the world.
It was the first time that the company participated in the event, held in the city of Austin, in the United States. The announcement of EnergyGPT reinforces Minas Gerais’ position as an advanced hub for the energy transition. The expectation is that the platform will become one of the pillars of the digitalization of the electricity grid operated by the company.
Developed with an investment of R$26 million, the system is now undergoing validation in real operation and already integrates the routines of more than 200 professionals.
The platform uses language models trained on a regulatory basis from Aneel (National Electric Energy Agency), technical standards and sector documentation, in addition to a tool that allows the creation of personalized agents for different workflows.
When participating in a panel that discussed global trends in the sector, the president of Cemig, Reynaldo Passanezi Filho, spoke about the current moment, in which data and artificial intelligence are playing a central role in the area.
“The new energy frontier is strategic. Whoever masters digital networks and energy intelligence will lead economic growth in the coming decades”he stated.
Cemig also presented other initiatives that it has been developing in Minas Gerais during the 7 days of SXSW, which ended on Wednesday (March 18, 2026). These are the cases of the Serra da Saudade microgrid, the first in the country with a model that allows double electrical supply, increasing the system’s resilience, in operation since January. Also, Agrivoltaic, which combines solar energy with agricultural and livestock production, creating new dynamics of land use and water efficiency.
Together, these and other projects represent around R$1 billion invested by the company in innovation and applied research.
Transformation
The size of the system operated by Cemig helps explain the importance of the solutions presented at SXSW. The company serves more than 9.5 million customers in 774 municipalities and manages a network of approximately 550 thousand km (equivalent to 14 laps around the planet).
Minas Gerais has one of the cleanest electrical matrices in the world, with around 98% renewable sources. From 2018 to 2025, the installed power in distributed energy in the State jumped from 153 megawatts to 5.17 gigawatts.
To accompany this transformation, Cemig is conducting the largest investment cycle in its history. From 2019 to 2030, the forecast is to invest around R$70 billion, of which 68% will be allocated to modernizing and expanding the distribution network, including the installation of 1.48 million smart meters and the construction of new substations.
With information from .
