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This year’s energy crisis is a stark reminder that Asia remains reliant on Middle Eastern oil and exposed to the chokepoints and conflicts that affect its supply—even as China leads the world in clean-energy innovation and manufacturing. Can the region reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and reach peak oil demand as soon as 2030? Converting Asia’s technological edge into long-term energy security requires an alignment of capital, manufacturing capacity, infrastructure modernization and political will, alongside continued technological breakthroughs. Three leaders in the sector discuss the steps needed to accelerate the transition before the next shock inevitably occurs.

Haitian Pang, Chairman & CEO, JX Intelligence 
Youyuan Huang, Executive Vice Chairman and General Manager, BTR New Material Group 
Fang Wang, Executive Editor, Shanghai, Fortune China 

Accelerating the Energy Transition

Conferences

OK, so this discussion will be conducted in English, in Chinese, so please refer to our headset to listen to our smart translation. Well, actually, so, actually, when we see that Asia, this is a huge market, even though we have very well developed new technology, but still Asia rely on the petroleum and energy from Middle East, which lead to some problem of the security. So now we invite the three distinguished guests to have the discussion. And 3, all of them coming from mainland China. I would like to share something of their background with you. So, They are, they, they are coming from the energy industry. So they also focus on the innovation of new material, etc. So today, I mean, one of the top topic is not the overcapacity, is the safety or how to have a better utilization of the recycled or new or green energy from China. So we would like to invite the three distinguished guests to share with us. So, first of all, I would like to start from Daniel. So Daniel, Daniel Liu, the vice president of Ginola. So please share something with us, something the background and also the situation of the energy, the energy transaction. So that happened in Asia. OK. Thank you. Well, in the past decade, I have run all over Asia Pacific region, over 20 countries and regions. And yeah, I saw a lot and also I interviewed a lot of people. And I, I'm glad to share with you that the transaction of energy in China is quite successful. It's something I sometimes I'd like to use the word radical. It's quite radical, but it's quite successful. We got some data. So for example, now, the power generation is over. 1.5 trillion uh 10 trillion, oh sorry, it's not 1. something, it's 10 trillion kilowatts. So it's quite huge. Such kinds of the big power generation amount is not just coming from the coming from the petroleum or coming from the coal or charcoal, etc. And a lot of them coming from the voltavoltaic. So it's coming from the solar energy. So as being a traditional coal user, charcoal user, petroleum user, China make a big step forward compared to India, you know, India got also the same population over 1.5 billion. So in the past, India also invest a lot in order to realize the energy transaction. But because of, I mean, technology or something. That the transition of the energy structure compared to China, India is left behind. Let's look at Southeast Asia. So for Southeast, for example, like the Philippines, Philippines, it owns over 7000 islands, similar to Indonesia, they also have a lot of demand. But how to combine the fossil energy together with the future, for example, the, the wind energy, right on the ocean, the wind energy got a big potential. This is something we need to consider as a big market for us. OK, thank you. Next, we'd like to invite, uh, Mr. Fang from battery. So. So, so, so, so that uh we know that you, you, you, you're focusing on the development of the battery technology. So I would like to ask your question that uh what is your idea about the development of the energy storage, energy storage, and what is your current development in China? And what the comparison between China and the other countries? In perspective of the technology development of the energy storage. OK, so the energy storage technology acquired a big growth in the past 3 years. According to the current data at the end of this year, that we expect to export over 1000 big units of the energy storage. There's over 1000 big scale, big scale energy storage units were exported from China to the rest of the world, to the other country. So that means that all, all, I mean all the industries or the government also that put a big attention to the energy storage technology. So because of what, a lot of things, number one, it could help to reduce the cost of energy, right? Yeah, #2, it could provide a stable power supply. For many countries, power generation is only #1, but #2, but power generation, you generate the power, but it's not stable, right? So the peak, you at the peak and get the value. So the peak supply and value supply, counterbalance them. So the energy storage. That unit could help to balance the two. China already established a complete industry chain. It's very reliable and of course it's quite competitive. It's affordable for many countries, for many players to import the facilities of their energy storage from from China, especially Southeast Asia. And China also a lot of the energy storage unit maker, they also shift their production line from mainland China to Southeast Asia. Indeed. Quite popular, yes. So go to Southeast Asia. Now this has become very popular because of the demand, you know that's the power supply is not very stable in Southeast Asia. So but if they want to build up a big power grid, the investment will be huge. So if they import the power energy storage unit from China, they can save the cost. And they also can control the power cost for household. Yeah, so for Gino, your company, your power generation, and also another one, OK, Dr. Huang, on behalf of the energy storage and Haikian is on behalf of the smart grid, smart energy application, right? So all of you doing something about the physical infrastructure or physical products. So it sounds like you're very, I mean, physical guy. I want to ask you physical guys that today, you know, the power grade, it's become more complicated and sometimes it's out of your way of prediction. So because you see that before we generate the power by burning the coal, charcoal, or burning the petroleum. Now, we have different sources of the power generation, right, from solar, from wind, from everything. So we please explain to us how could we have a better Uh, balancing technology or good application technology to the balance them. Make sure that people could utilize the power more in a more effectively. OK, yes, for human being, now, you know that we also, we, we, we, we live in a different region, right? So some of them live in, uh, like in Southeast Asia or or at the coastline of uh uh of the continent, and some live in the rural area or in the mountainous area. And also, for example, in the northwest part of China, so that the wind is strong in the in the desert or around the desert, right? So, if we supply the power from the south or north or east to the north northwest, it costs a lot of costs a lot by uh transporting. Transporting those power from the east to the west, from south to the north. Uh, and also the inspection. But before we ask the human being to do the inspection along the whole transportation line of the power, and it costs a lot, right? And the symptoms are quite dangerous. For example, in the extreme climate, in the rainstorm, in the snowstorm, if we ask the staff to go climb up. Come up to do the inspection to the power transformer or the transportation line, etc. wow, you know, that's quite dangerous. But now we, we have the AI, we have the robots to do it, right? We have the UAE to do it, the drone to do it. And then we also get the Power generation sources also become greener than before. We have the solar energy. We have the wind energy, etc. so that the whole industry becomes complicated. Therefore, we need to develop the power management system or the control center that is a smart center could allocate the resources, allocate the power resources. Amount the big to the power grid and then make sure that people when they use their solar panel to generate power, they can get the return from them at the same time, they will go to utilize the power conveniently. So yeah, that is really quite great. So what you have mentioned has come to a new topic, which is quite hot right now. We say it collaboration of computing power, electricity power. So that is something we always say in China. So on one hand, For one hand, we use the electricity power to guarantee the computing power. On the other hand, computing power will help the power generation to be smart generated. So for example, the computing power can help the electricity to do the peak shaving. So I'd like to ask you, Daniel. So, um, from 2026, the new computing center. Um, built in China show. At least consume 80% of green electricity. So the electricity should be green electricity. Is that a burden or is that the opportunity? So for for Jino Solar, are you start to sell the solution rather than just sell. Uh, component part is that burden or opportunity? Well, I think that is very inspiring and for us, we are doing that right now. So just like Mr. Wang said. Asia Pacific region. has been very unbalanced in terms of new energy. And AI will be a very good tool to address the imbalance issue. So we know that in China, we have data center. Um, in the eastern part of the country, but the computing power should be built in the western part of China. So for example, we build a center in the western part of China because the energy cost is much lower and the energy is more enriched. So in China, there's a line that draw from the southwest of China to the northeast of China. And in the east part, there are a lot of companies, so consuming power is very strong and they need a lot of computing power. But in the northwest part of China, which has less population, less industry, less demand. But more energy. So right now, for example, we have the ultra high voltage project. So we use the ultra high voltage project to transmit the power from the west of China to the east where the demand is. Yeah, and in the future with AI we can do the peak shaving. We can adjust the Uh, power Yeah, so the energy storage demand is also going up with the computing power center. So I would like to ask Dr. Huang, so you know that the energy storage accounts for over 40% in terms of the facilities relating to AI. So what kind of material do we need for energy storage? For your company because VTR is making new materials. How do you think about the new materials? Well, AIDC. Energy storage comes from two parts. The first one is UPS system to guarantee very stable supply of power generation. And this system has very strict requirements for the volt, for the volt, um, fluctuation. And then with AI technology, and every time when the power fluctuation happens, The AIDC needs the battery to do the instant response. Even within milliseconds to ensure the stable supply of power generation. Otherwise, if we lose the data. Yes, several days ago we saw a lot of LLM shut down because of the fluctuation of the voltage, right, from of the boat. Yes, especially during the 11 when a lot of people are using their technology to buy the products. So it will have very big challenge on the supply of the power. So this requires very Um, very high demand on the new material for the stability. So it has a high requirement on the material. OK, besides lithium, you're also working on R&D of some other materials like the sodium, etc. Will that be used in the AIDC? Yes, of course. Because, The sodium ion battery has very obvious advantages in the power and also for the thermal. Resistance or or a thermal tolerance, but it has disadvantages in terms of energy density. So for energy density, lithium battery is more ideal. But for the sodium ion technology, I believe that with the industry development, it will be, more ideal choice in the future. OK, so could you please tell us about the AIDC development perspective from China and some other area. So we know that in Malaysia or Thailand they all want to build. AIDC and China has most green electricity and most cheap electricity price. But how about the other countries? Yeah, that is different. Computing power collaborates with electricity? Maybe only happens in China because the demand. And the supply. Well, you know, in China, we can use a lot of green electricity for installation. We also invested in Indonesia, and we know that Indonesia is also built the DC, but based on traditional power generation, maybe thermal power or hydropower. But still, This electricity. are different from China because China is not just for satisfying the demand on using electricity, but also needs to reduce the cost and satisfying carbon reduction. Yeah, so in China, You satisfy the demand for using the electricity, but also needs to be cheap electricity and also needs to be clean and green electricity. So China satisfying three goals together. OK, so how about you, Hai Xian? A lot of people said that, um, Silicon Valley started to talk about China, Wullan Tabo. We know that Wullan Tabo is a place that built the first Energy integrated adjustment platform. So are you also making the deployment in Wulan Chabu in the Mongolia of China? So how does that realize the peak shaving? So why do you think that the Silicon Valley people are so fascinated about that? Well, Wulan Tabu is a very typical case about China for computing power collaborating with electricity generation. A lot of AIBC were built in Wulan Tabu, um, essentially have infrastructure. I think that the biggest cost is coming from the electricity power itself. So in Wulan Tabu, it enjoys great solar power and wind power. So here, You can use very low cost of wind power or solar power to support AIDC. But for AIDC, Well, it has its own problems. So for example, uh, for training, it can wait a little bit for for training, but for Interference and reasoning, AIBC needs to do that instantly, right? And maybe not at night, right? Because only in the daytime you have the solar power. And then for the wind power, you cannot predict the wind power. Uh, you need a smart brain to understand about the physics and the geography of this area. And to predict what kind of energy storage it needs to install to ensure the comprehensive electricity cost to be the lowest, yeah, stable, clean, low cost. And uh AI brain should be important because the upstream is uncontrollable and unpredictable and downstream means you should be more ideal and flexible. So you need a smart AI brain to satisfy the needs both upstream and downstream. AI can play a vital role. Well, so why do you always call physical AI brain? Physical AI is that different from AI? Well, we say physical AI. Physical AI means to understand the physical world and physical rule, including meteorology, including the weather, including the economics. OK, physical AI brain needs to understand the physical world. Yeah, it should simulate the world, understand the world rule. OK, Doctor Huang. China is a leader definitely. But there are still a lot of challenges China face. Would you please talk about some pinpoints in China challenges, particularly, for example, like excessive and excessive supply. So when you come to other countries, like Malaysia or Southeast Asia, do you think they can Bypass our challenges. So for example, some challenges only faced by China, but they don't have such challenges. Well, I think that they can learn the lessons China has has encountered. In other countries, maybe they could not make as big infrastructure as China. Yeah, China has very big infrastructure. Yeah, in other countries, maybe. They need to make the plan and layout based on their own development stage. For example, distributed energy system is more suitable in Southeast Asia, and they can use the low cost energy technology. For example, in Southeast Asia, and some least developed area, distributed energy system is more suitable. So we are also promoting that in Indonesia and Morocco. We work together with the local government to build the energy generation plant and to promote the green use of energy and to the local government we can help them to improve the energy usage. OK. When a Chinese factory open another site in Southeast Asia, you work together with the local government and make the distributed energy system. Will that benefit the community? Yeah, of course. Especially in some countries. The resources of green electricity is abundant. And we're also very happy to see that some country make the national program to promote green electricity. So Haitian, you mentioned about Saudi Arabian 2030 vision. Do you make some deployment in Saudi Arabia? Because Saudi Arabia is a traditional petroleum country, but they also have the energy transition goal. Can you talk about Saudi Arabia 2030 vision? Well, A clean energy transition or lower cost energy transition is continued. This trend is continued. And from our side, First of all, China is leading in the technology. And we guarantee that stable supply and lower cost of supply for electricity. And In Saudi Arabia, even the country is traditionally thrived based on the petroleum, but it also has the ambition because In the desert, in the desert, they enjoy greater solar power. They enjoy greater sunlight. And also in Saudi Arabia. They are quite innovative as well. They think that even we have enough fossil energy, but for the future and sustainability, we need to make preparations. So They build AIDC as well. I think Saudi Arabia is quite an amazing country and I know those people have great mindset towards green electricity. And we also see that in some Southeast Asian countries in some Middle East countries. They are interested in our physical AI products. They would like to talk to China. They would like to accept the Chinese technology. I think that in the future, um, these green transition will be globalized. OK, we know that Jinco so far is still just uh suffering from one thing is that the overcapacity of the this industry. So still that the solar power, I mean the solar power, uh, this industry is still in the in the valley, OK, so we don't know what it can go out of this valley. Would you please analyze something about the whole the Asian market. So how the other countries in Southeast Asia sector would avoid this problem like China, right? The photovoltaic, photovoltaic power overcapacity of the production. Yeah, OK, so in order to avoid the overcapacity of the production like in China, I think this question, it must be, I mean, be aware. So number one. So #2 is that this is about the energy transaction, right? So that's, for example, that if there is abundance, there is abundance uh solar energy resources in one place, for example, like in Ningxia. So the government should have a better plan, the plan in advance and then to core the participation from the enterprises step by step. Otherwise, that if everybody joined into that channel and they step in China. Then it will cause a problem overcapacity again. So that even you go to some other like countries and regions, they would not work like China. So for example, like in Pakistan, over 60% of 60% of the agriculture irrigation were moved or driven by the PV by the solar power. Solar power to the agricultural irrigation in Pakistan over 60%. Yes, it's true. You know, Pakistan used to be, I mean, lack of the water, right, water resources, and then the irrigation costs were high, but now they import the solar energy technology from China and then to help them to support the agricultural irrigation. So they they reduced the cost a lot and another successful case study also happened in South Asia, the Philippines. And also that's, I mean, the cost reduced a lot. So I think in the period of the energy transition, so that we we have some focus on the safety, and also we have the market potential and also we have some idea how to avoid the overcapacity. Thank you for all your sharing, it's very wonderful. We know that this is a correct route, is a correct right road for us to do the energy transition in Asia. Even though China is a leader, but the other Asian countries and regions, they use, they work on their own way towards the future and we believed in the year 2030, definitely we'll reach the goal of low carbon. Thank you for your wonderful sharing.

Longtime DC vet Kristin Smith joins the show to make the case for why we could see the critical Clarity Act pass as soon as July—and why the industry has an ace up its sleeve. Meanwhile, Jeff and Leo explore Circle's surprise earnings, the price of Bitcoin holding up as bombs fall in Iran, and the controversy over whether crypto markets should pay out on Khamenei's death. The hosts also dive into an unpopular New York Times op-ed, and whether the paper hates crypto

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A year into the job, David Risher talks innovation at Lyft, plus lessons learned from the recent earnings error.

Lyft's CEO says the company will be profitable soon

Photo illustration by Fortune. Photograph provided by Lyft.

Leadership

David Risher talks innovation at Lyft, plus lessons learned from the recent earnings error.

Brands are so interesting and reputations are so interesting because they take a long time to build and once you've got them, they actually persist for, for many years. So I was just by the way at fortune, we know that for sure, hard to, hard to kill a good brand. Once, once you are, you guys trying? No, we're not anymore. But there probably been times in our past when we were trying. Pretty hard. Welcome to leadership next, the podcast about the changing rules of business leadership. I'm Alan Murray and I'm Mia, this is a hyper competitive business. You're like Coke and Pepsi or maybe more like Hertz and Avis or something. And, you know, I know when I'm, when I'm getting a car, I just want the car to be there fast. I don't care who it comes from. So what is the nature? It's a fairly undifferentiated pro uh product. What, what, what can you do? What is, what, what, how do you really make ground against Uber in this battle? Yeah, it turns out you can do a lot and it's interesting because so first of all, you know, really focusing on the customer really makes a difference. So I'll give you some examples. When I started, the company had started to focus a little bit too much on Wall Street and a little bit too little on its own riders and drivers. And so, you know, if I'm honest, we were paying our drivers not quite uh competitive rates. We were uh charging our riders a little bit more, uh under the hopes of making more money faster. Just a bad strategy. Just because to your point, a lot of people, they'll say, you know, who's going to get me there less expensively, who's going to get me there faster. So when I, when I look forward, you know, over the year, you know, just fixing some of the basics really, really helps and I'll give you, you know, an example a year ago our of what we call our pin eta difference. So let's say the gap between how fast you might be picked up and the other guy versus us might have been three or four minutes, which is significant if you're in a hurry now, it's 10 seconds. Now it's 10 seconds. So when you get to the point where it's 10 seconds, now, you can start to compete on other things, you can start to compete on women Plus Connect, which we launched, which is a product that's women, choose women. You can start to compete on faster airport pickup where people are very stressed about getting to the airport. So it's sort of a couple stage thing. You got to make sure you're focused on your customers. You gotta fix the basics to give yourself permission to do some of the other more innovative things. And then you can start to innovate and give people a real reason to choose one or the other instead of having them. Think it's kind of the same thing is, uh, transparency part of it too. I mean, I, I would assume that drivers care very much about that. Have you made changes there? Absolutely. Absolutely. And in fact, that's exactly it. So I have AAA public email address. Uh It's David at lyft.com and, and, and drivers, right? And they're very clear about what it is that they like and they're also very clear about what bugs them. And so, but again, customer obsession, right? So our drivers are our customers. So we have to pay attention to what bugs them and the lack of transparency really bothers them, you know, they start to kind of come up with all sorts of theories of what's going on. So now, and this again is a relatively new feature where actually I just rolled it out over the last, you know, six weeks or so. At the end of every week, you, you get a full statement that, that literally starts with how much riders pay because that was the thing that would bug them so much is they would say, you know, I got a, a, you know, a trip where a rider paid me 50 bucks and I only made 10 and it's like, but what, what is that? So anyway, so now we show them, you know, the complete statement, uh, literally everything that rider paid, everything that they got, all their tips, all the tools, all the different, you know, things. And then again, if it's ever less than 70% after those pass through fees, we literally send them a check, we send them a check. And again, this driver group, I talked to the other day, they said I couldn't believe it. The first time I got a rebate, you know, it was sort of like getting a tax rebate. It was, it was great. So David, you're, you're, you're focusing on customers, you're focusing on riders, you're focusing less on shareholders. But at the end of the day, you do have to make money and you haven't yet. Uh uh How do you feel about progress towards that goal? And the reason is because our, our mantra is customer obsession drives profitable growth. So, you know, let's look at the other numbers for a second. So, um, so first on the growth side, you know, the first quarter that I was, uh CEO we grew about 10% year on year, then we grew about 17% then we were about 20% then we grew about 26%. So those are the first four quarters. So we're growing. So then the question is, what are we doing it profitably? Well, as you point out, we haven't made gap profitability yet, but it is absolutely on the, you know, on the road map, we were free cash flow positive last quarter. That's Q four of 2023 we will be free cash flow positive this entire year. Absolutely. We've promised it to Wall Street and when you look at our losses, they are diminishing to the point where they're really quite small right now. And most Wall Street analysts show us turning a profit quite soon. So we are absolutely on that path. Some of it was very hard decisions. You know, one of my first decision was, was obviously very difficult uh involving cutting about 26% of our staff, which is very difficult to do incredibly hard, uh you know, kind of heart wrenching uh work, but you, you have to do it if you're gonna be able to lower your prices and pay drivers more, you know, and, and, and, and now we're being very disciplined, very disciplined quarter after quarter. Our listeners would never forgive us if we didn't ask you about the EBITA mistake because it was such a fascinating moment. It was a misplaced zero in a press release that caused the, the stock to soar came back down. You now have class action lawsuits. What did you learn from that? Did you learn anything? Was there we were there any? Oh Yeah, we learned, we learned a lot. Yeah, I mean, the first thing I have to say and I said this before, I'll say it again. That's on me, that's on me. And I want people really to understand that when you're a leader of the organization, no, makes a mistake. It's your problem. And so now I will also say, man did our team hustle and, and what happened, what happened literally was an extra zero that got inserted into an early version of the press release and it just rolled forward. And this despite literally no exaggeration of hundreds of people's hundreds of people's eyes, including my own seeing it over and over again. But what happened, it was in a forecast piece which gets a little less scrutiny than the backwards looking stuff, the basis point versus percentage. I mean, they are very, very different words, but unfortunately, they mean something very, very different. And so, and we literally found it in real time as we were reading out the, um the, the, the sort of earnings report and we changed it within two minutes, I think. And all of a sudden our legal team again and actually our policy team jumped into action so very, very quick response. Absolutely fantastic. And I certainly learned how fast the team can work when it, when it is under that kind of pressure. Now, uh what have, what have we also learned? Well, we've learned that even though we have really exactly the same process that every other public company has all sorts of eyes, it wasn't sufficient, it wasn't sufficient. So, what are we doing? We actually now have a process. We're just about to go through this as our next earnings come out where we take all of our materials. We now give them to an outside third party we've hired to do exactly this and what they do is without having any other context. They look, not just to sort of double check the numbers, but they try to build the model that our press release and earnings statement is suggesting they build and then look at what that model results in. And then we compare that back to our internal models. And if those models are vary by anything that significant, we know there is a problem along the way.

But that may change sooner rather than later.

There are only 44 women and 6 Black CEOs leading Fortune 500 companies

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Only 44 women and 6 Black CEOs leading Fortune 500 companies

There are 44 women ceo at the helm of Fortune 500 companies this year. Up three from last year. These women led companies are from a wide range of industries including but certainly not limited to the banking, financial services, healthcare, insurance, retail. The list goes on. So number four we have CVS health. It's run by Karen Lynch. She is the top ranking of women C. E o. S in the Fortune 500. She's one of the most powerful women in the world and she's helping one of the most powerful companies in the world. And there are five new women Ceos who have taken office this year. Laura Priest corn is the Ceo of Jackson Financial. Ellen cooper is the Ceo of Lincoln National's Joyce mullen is Ceo of insight enterprises, Sarah London head Centene and Sarah nash is the interim Ceo of Bath and body works for this push of diversity in getting new faces of leadership were really still not seeing much by way of diversity improvements among the Fortune 500 though three is better than none, but it's still not even 10% of the list. You could say it's significant because it's not really much significant change. There hasn't been a lot of movement and Ceo in general last year. There were five black Ceos of Fortune 500 companies this year. There are six. That list includes Marvin, Ellison, the Ceo of Loews robert, Ruskin, founder and Ceo of compass frank Clyburn, the Ceo of international flavors and fragrances, David Rawlinson, the Ceo of Kerry retail and two black female Ceo to Shonda Brown Ducat of T. I A and Raspberry were of Walgreens Boots Alliance. We do expect to see a lot of seats open up over the next year. We're seeing a lot of CEOs in the same seats. A lot have been sort of hunker down mode as they've been trying to get their companies through the storm of the economy and what's happening in the world right now, we think that will change. Burnout is hitting even the top ranks of Ceo. So you're going to see more seats open up, which of course presents more opportunities for diverse talent to come in and lead.

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