“Her outstanding research accomplishments and contributions to the School and Georgia Tech led to this selection,” said Professor Christopher W. Jones, the John F. Brock III School Chair in ChBE@GT.

The $20,000 in discretionary funding from this one-year fellowship will support Jamali’s research activities focused on developing new tools for in situ liquid-phase transmission electron microscopy, stochastic thermodynamics, and nanoscience-based platforms.

The Spencers established the endowment from which the term fellowship funding comes in 2017. This endowment will eventually lead to the establishment of a professorship in ChBE@GT.

“Bob Spencer is a successful alumnus who has remained connected to our chemical engineering program,” according to Jones. “His family’s gift will allow ChBE@GT to support an early career professor at a critical stage of their development—the crucial years just before their promotion and tenure review. We are grateful for their support and generosity.”

Read Full Story on the ChBE Newspage

1. You’re paying more at the pump, and it’s not going away anytime soon.

Gas prices are the most visible sign of the crisis, and the increases are already significant. National average retail gasoline prices are more than $1.20 higher than they were in February, before the conflict escalated.

“Even though U.S. petroleum production often exceeds our consumption, we are not insulated from disruptions in global oil supply because oil is a globally traded commodity,” says director of the Energy Policy and Innovation Center, Laura Taylor. “If supply is restricted anywhere in the world, prices will rise everywhere, including in the U.S.”

Markets expect some relief by fall, with future prices pointing lower than today’s levels. But Tony Harding, assistant professor in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy, cautions, “Prices are likely to remain above pre-conflict levels for the foreseeable future, and temporary relief measures, such as Georgia’s motor fuel tax suspension, will not last forever.”

Taylor puts it plainly: “Wages are not rising faster than prices, so people are feeling the pinch and will continue to do so.”

2. Your summer plans just got more expensive.

The impact does not stop at the gas station. For Americans planning summer travel, the timing of this conflict could not be worse. Matthew Oliver, associate professor in the School of Economics, points to commercial air travel as one of the most exposed sectors.

“Jet fuel prices have roughly doubled in the wake of the current oil price spike, putting immediate upward pressure on airfares,” says Oliver.

The ripple effects extend far beyond travel. 

“Oil is an input into the supply chain of nearly every good at some point,” says Bobby Harris, assistant professor in the School of Economics. “When input costs go up, prices go up.”

3. Expect to pay more at the grocery store.

The connection between Middle East tensions and the American dinner table is more direct than many realize, because petrochemicals are a key feedstock for fertilizer production.

“Higher oil prices lead to higher fertilizer prices, which lead to higher food prices,” says Oliver. 

Combined with existing tariff pressures and tight supply chains, the strain on household budgets is coming from multiple directions at once.

“If the crisis persists, there will be upward pressure on the prices of nearly every physical good,” Oliver adds.

4. The government’s options are limited, and the clock is ticking.

Washington has tools to respond, but none are silver bullets. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve currently holds around 400 million barrels and can release about 4 million barrels per day, roughly 20% of U.S. daily demand.

“I see the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a tool to buy time during a crisis,” says public policy professor Dan Matisoff. “But if the conflict drags on, we will ultimately be in a more vulnerable position.”

Quick fixes like price caps or demand subsidies carry trade-offs. 

“Subsidies can mitigate the impact of price shocks, but they can also mask important market signals that help balance supply and demand,” says Harding, using Europe’s 2022 energy crisis as a cautionary example.

5. The smartest thing Americans can do right now is think about efficiency.

“People in general tend to undervalue energy efficiency,” says Matisoff. “Think of energy efficiency investments as a sort of hedge or insurance against volatile energy prices.”

That means considering fuel efficiency when buying a car, and looking at heat pumps, electric vehicles, and home energy upgrades when the time is right.

“Higher energy prices increase the value of investing in energy efficiency upgrades to your home and adopting technologies that are less dependent on fossil fuels,” says Harding.

For families navigating uncertainty, both economists and policy experts point to the same practical advice: Reduce your exposure to fossil fuel price swings before the next crisis hits.

As an energy economist and an international trade economist, we field a lot of questions during such episodes, because when oil prices go up, manufacturers, businesses and ultimately consumers pay more.

Some basic economics

Crude oil may be the most important commodity in the global economic system.

It’s a literal fuel for the industrial economy. It powers the engines that drive transportation and paves the roads vehicles drive on. It’s a source for plastics from which the world’s products get made and packaged, and a key ingredient at some point in almost every supply chain. Even fertilizers that boost the food supply are made from it. In short, it is difficult to imagine modern life without oil and its derivatives.

And when its supply changes, its price changes. Economists explain this using a fundamental model of our field: the supply-demand diagram. When there’s less of something to go around, competition among consumers who want it and companies that need it can drive the price up.

Sometimes this process can play out over time, allowing people to adjust their purchasing or activities to dampen price shocks. But when a significant source of the world’s oil is effectively blocked without much advance notice, such as when the the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, prices can rise sharply in a short period of time.

A natural question many people ask when oil prices spike is: Where does all that additional money go, and who benefits from it?

Some people have written entire books dissecting all the places that money goes when it leaves consumers’ pockets. But ultimately, the bulk of the money heads in the direction of the source of the oil itself – the oil companies.

What they do with the money varies widely, depending on where in the world an oil company is operating and who owns it. What also matters is the business environment – the set of laws and regulations – in which the company operates.

Middle East faces danger

Oil producers in the Middle East face significant new risk because of the war in Iran, including threats to production, processing locations and shipping routes. These risks raise their costs for insurance, security and transportation.

But production costs in the region are relatively low, so higher global oil prices typically still translate into strong profits.

For a major exporter such as Saudi Arabia, the government owns and controls nearly all oil production, so high prices generally benefit the government’s finances and investments, even during a war. In Saudi Arabia, oil revenue has historically been used to fund public spending.

West Texas gets a windfall

The Permian Basin, the largest oil field in the U.S., is a long way from the Persian Gulf. When global oil prices rise because of the war in Iran, oil companies operating in West Texas effectively get a windfall gain: Prices rise more quickly than costs, at least in the short run.

The immediate effect is more income from higher prices. The money largely goes to company owners – meaning shareholders – through dividends, debt reduction, company-backed purchases of its own stock, and reinvestment in drilling and production. Over time, companies may decide to spend some of that windfall on building more production capacity or pipelines to get more oil and gas to market.

North Sea boosts government revenue

In the North Sea, between the island of Great Britain and Scandinavia, a mix of multinational and government-owned companies produce most of the oil.

In the U.K., private shareholders are the primary beneficiaries of higher profits from increased oil prices, though an additional tax on oil and gas companies’ profits means the government also collects a significant share of the money, which it uses to help pay public expenses.

In Norway, oil revenues flow into the Government Pension Fund Global, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, valued at over $2 trillion. Laws govern how much, and for what purposes, money can be withdrawn from the fund, supporting public spending and preserving wealth for future generations. This is a similar model to Alaska’s state-owned program, funded by oil revenue, that pays for government services and sends an annual dividend to every permanent resident.

Russian oligarchs get rich

Russian oil is subject to stringent economic sanctions imposed by major industrial countries as a response to the Russian invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine. While the U.S. cannot control how much Russia charges for its oil, it can control services needed to move Russian oil around the world. Under current price sanctions, Western shipping, insurance and financing can be used to ship and sell Russian crude oil only if the price is below $60 per barrel.

Russia’s oil industry is dominated by government-controlled companies whose leaders maintain close ties to President Vladimir Putin. The dealings of those shadowy figures are often shrouded in secrecy, but it is likely that they and Putin’s military-industrial complex – not the Russian people – are the main beneficiaries of high oil prices.

What this means for you

Everyday U.S. consumers may not like the idea of their hard-earned cash going into the already deep pockets of any of these groups. But in the short run, there’s not much to do but pay the price. For the long run, however, people around the world are already thinking and talking about, and opting for, sources of energy that don’t depend on fossil fuels.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

As an energy economist, I am often asked about what contributes to gas prices and what different policies can do to affect them.

The price of a retail gallon of gas is the sum of four things: the cost of crude oil, refining, distribution and marketing, and taxes.

In nationwide figures from January 2026, crude oil accounted for about 51% of the pump price, refining roughly 20%, distribution and marketing about 11% and taxes about 18%. That mix shifts with conditions: When crude oil prices spike, that can drive more than 60% of the price; when the price drops, taxes and logistics are larger shares of the cost.

Crude oil is the biggest ingredient

Because the price of crude oil is the largest element, most of the price at the pump is derived from the global oil market.

Usually, big swings in crude prices come mainly from shifts in global demand and expectations – not from supply disruptions, according to widely cited research in 2009 by the economist Lutz Kilian.

But what is happening in early 2026 with the war in Iran is one of the exceptions: a classic supply shock. Severe disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on Middle East oil infrastructure have taken millions of barrels a day off the global market.

Most drivers generally can’t quickly reduce how much they drive or how much gas they use when prices rise, so gasoline demand doesn’t change much in the short run. That means a jump in crude costs tends to result in people paying more rather than driving less.

Refining, regulations and the California puzzle

Refining turns crude into gasoline at industrial scale. The U.S. doesn’t have a single gasoline market, though. Roughly a quarter of U.S. gasoline is a cleaner-burning blend of petroleum-derived chemicals called “reformulated gasoline,” which is required in urban areas across 17 states and the District of Columbia to reduce smog.

California uses an even stricter formulation that few out-of-state refineries make. California is also geographically isolated: No pipelines bring gasoline in from other U.S. refining regions.

California’s gasoline prices have long run above the national average, explained in part by higher state taxes and stricter environmental rules. But since a refinery fire in Torrance, California, in 2015 reduced production capacity, the state’s prices have been about 20 to 30 cents a gallon higher than what those factors would indicate.

Energy economist and University of California, Berkeley, professor Severin Borenstein has called this the “mystery gasoline surcharge” and attributes it to the fact that there isn’t as much competition between refineries or gas stations in California as in other states. California’s own Division of Petroleum Market Oversight says the surcharge cost the state’s drivers about $59 billion from 2015 to 2024. It’s not exactly clear who is getting that money, but it could be gas stations themselves or refineries, through complex contracts with gas stations.

Getting the gas into your car

The distribution and marketing category covers the costs of everything involved in getting the gasoline from the refinery gate to your tank.

Gasoline moves by pipeline, ship, rail and truck to wholesale terminals, and then by local delivery truck to service stations.

At the retailer’s end, the key factors are station rent and labor, the cost to buy gasoline in bulk to be able to sell it, credit card fees of as much as 6 to 10 cents a gallon at current prices, and franchise fees paid to the national brand, such as Sunoco or ExxonMobil, for permission to put their branding on the gas station.

Most gas station operators net only a few cents per gallon on fuel itself – which is why many gas stations are really convenience stores with pumps out front. Borenstein and some of his collaborators have also documented that retail gas prices rise quickly when wholesale costs climb but fall slowly when wholesale costs drop.

The question of gas tax holidays

The federal government charges a tax on fuel, of 18.4 cents a gallon for gasoline and 24.3 cents a gallon for diesel. States charge their own taxes, ranging from 70.9 cents a gallon for gas in California to 8.95 cents in Alaska.

When gas prices rise, many politicians start talking about temporarily suspending their state’s gas tax. That does reduce prices, but not as much as politicians – or consumers – might hope. Research on past gas tax holidays has found that consumers get about 79% of the reduction in gas taxes. That means oil companies and fuel retailers keep about one-fifth of the tax cut for themselves rather than passing that savings to the public.

Gas tax holidays also reduce funding for what the taxes are designed to pay for, typically roads and bridges. That pushes road and bridge upkeep costs onto future drivers and general taxpayers.

There is an additional problem, too: Taxes on gasoline are supposed to charge drivers for some of the costs their driving imposes on everyone else – carbon emissions, local air pollution, congestion and crashes. But Borenstein has found that U.S. fuel tax levels are already far below the true cost to society. Removing the tax on drivers effectively raises the costs for everyone else.

The Jones Act: A small number that adds up

The 1920 Jones Act is a federal law that requires cargo moving between U.S. ports to travel on vessels built and registered in the U.S., owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed primarily by U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Of the world’s 7,500 oil tankers, only 54 meet this requirement. Only 43 of these can transport refined fuels such as gasoline.

So, despite significant refining capacity on the Gulf Coast, some U.S. gasoline is exported overseas even as the Northeast imports fuel, in part reflecting the relatively high cost of moving fuel between U.S. ports.

Economists Ryan Kellogg and Rich Sweeney estimate that the law raises East Coast gasoline prices by about a penny and a half per gallon on average, costing drivers roughly $770 million a year. In light of the war’s effect on gas prices, the Trump administration has temporarily suspended the Jones Act requirements – an action more commonly taken when hurricanes knock out Gulf Coast refineries and pipeline networks.

What moves the number

The result of all these factors is that the price that drivers see at the pump mostly reflects the global price of crude, plus a stack of domestic costs, only some of which are inefficient.

Tax holidays give a partial, short-lived rebate. Jones Act waivers trim pennies, though permanent repeal may cause more fundamental changes, such as reduced rail and truck transport of all goods, which could lower costs, emissions and infrastructure damage associated with cargo transportation. Harmonizing fuel blends across states and seasons may lower prices somewhat, but likely at the expense of increased emissions.

Ultimately, the best protection against oil price shocks is a more efficient gas-burning vehicle, or one that doesn’t burn gasoline at all. In the meantime, the best I can offer as an economist is clarity about what that $4.30 actually buys.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Eight faculty members received funding for projects that advance Georgia Tech energy research by generating early insights, expanding shared research tools, and exploring solutions related to energy policy, grid reliability, clean energy incentives, and industry‑driven innovation shaping Georgia’s energy future.

By supporting timely, policy-relevant research and engagement that connect Georgia Tech expertise with pressing regional energy challenges, the ACCELERATE program encourages collaboration across the Institute and with external partners, supports graduate student involvement, and amplifies research outputs that inform policy, regulatory, and market decisions. 

“ACCELERATE is designed to help early- and mid-career faculty move quickly on ideas that can shape energy policy and practice,” said Laura Taylor, director of EPIcenter. “By supporting both early‑stage collaboration and more developed policy research, the program enables Georgia Tech researchers to engage decision‑makers and stakeholders when it matters most.”

Proposals considered for funding were grounded in policy and behavioral research, including studies that examined how past or potential policies and regulations worked, and analyses of current market and behavioral outcomes that revealed management, policy, or regulatory gaps and opportunities.  

Funded projects span a range of disciplines and policy‑focused topics aligned with EPIcenter’s mission, with a strong emphasis on challenges facing Georgia and the Southeast. Collectively, the awards support research development, data creation, stakeholder engagement, and public-facing thought leadership intended to inform energy policy and implementation.

"As electricity demand grows, it is increasingly important to understand how industrial processes could use energy flexibly to enable efficient use of renewable resources like solar and wind,” said Micah Ziegler, assistant professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy. “Support from the EPIcenter ACCELERATE program enables us to ask fundamental questions about how to design flexible systems and supply chains."

Awards ranged from $5,000 to $75,000. Projects that received ACCELERATE funding include:

Measuring the Alignment Between Legislators’ Energy Bill Votes and Their District Characteristics in the Georgia House of Representatives
Faculty Researcher: Clio Andris, Associate Professor, School of City and Regional Planning and School of Interactive Computing

Strengthening Georgia Tech’s National Energy Modeling of Priority Research Areas
Faculty Researcher: Marilyn Brown, Regents' Professor and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy

Protecting Consumers From Price Volatility: Evidence and Policy Lessons From Georgia's Natural Gas Market
Faculty Researcher: Dylan Brewer, Assistant Professor, School of Economics

Can Place-Based Incentives Accelerate the Energy Transition?
Faculty Researcher: Gaurav Doshi, Assistant Professor, School of Economics

The Revolving Door in Utility Regulation
Faculty Researcher: Michelle Graff, Assistant Professor, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy 

How Do Data Centers Affect Tradeoffs Between Reliability and Decarbonization?
Faculty Researchers: Tony Harding, Assistant Professor, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy, and Brian An, Assistant Professor, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy

Calculating the Emissions Cost of the Solar Rebound for the United States
Faculty Researcher: Matt Oliver, Associate Professor, School of Economics

Evaluating Long-Duration Flexibility of Industrial Demand in Electric Power Systems
Faculty Researchers: Micah Ziegler, assistant professor, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy, and Constance Crozier, Assistant Professor, H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering

ACCELERATE is an annual program open to all Georgia Tech faculty, focusing on policy‑ and decision‑relevant research that advances energy affordability, reliability, resilience, and decarbonization in the region.

More information about EPIcenter’s research areas and programs is available at epicenter.energy.gatech.edu.

In 2018, the company broke ground in Social Circle, a small town an hour east of Atlanta with about 5,000 residents, to build one of its largest U.S. data centers. It opened in 2020.

Local officials called it a win. Shane Short, president and CEO of the Development Authority of Walton County, said the plant generates about $10 million annually in property tax revenue and has led to road improvements and expanded broadband.

Electric vehicle maker Rivian followed Meta’s lead and began construction on a plant near Social Circle in September 2025, adding to the area’s rapid industrial growth.

But for residents, the shift from a largely rural, agricultural economy to an energy-intensive industrial one has put new pressure on power and water systems.

“They’re seeing higher water and power bills, worse air quality, and very few jobs in return for this, while large corporations get tax benefits,” said Ahmed Saeed, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Computer Science, describing why residents in some communities push back on new data center development.

Saeed and Josiah Hester, associate professor of interactive computing and computer science and director of the Center for Advancing Responsible AI, have spent the past year studying the energy, water, and financial demands associated with these facilities, and how those costs are distributed.

Betting on Demand

AI data centers run on specialized chips that use large amounts of electricity. That power generates heat, which requires energy- and water-intensive cooling.

The state is adding capacity based on expected demand, not current use.

Last year, the Georgia Public Service Commission approved an estimated $16 billion expansion for Georgia Power to support that growth. It is expected to produce about 10 gigawatts of electricity at a given time. That’s enough energy to power about 7.5 million homes for a year.

If that demand materializes, the electricity is used. If it doesn’t, the cost still has to be paid.

Grid Stability

“Those workloads can put a very large demand on the grid all at once, and then remove it just as quickly,” Saeed said. “That sudden change is difficult for the system to handle.”

That volatility is a separate issue.

Even if data center operators pay for the infrastructure they use, large swings in demand can still strain grid operations, especially during peak periods or extreme weather.

What Comes Next

Back in Walton County, the Meta facility is already attracting additional data centers.

Each new site adds power and water infrastructure designed to operate for decades.

The servers inside need to be upgraded every few years.

Saeed and Hester said if Georgia wants to remain an AI and cloud hub, the state needs to set the terms and companies need to meet them.

That starts with disclosure — how much power data centers draw from the grid, how that demand spikes, and how much water they use. It includes clear expectations for how those facilities respond when the grid is under stress, and protections for the communities where they’re built.

The researchers maintain that “build it and hope” is not a strategy.

Building upon a multifaceted relationship, the two are bringing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and fueling infrastructure to campus — turning Georgia Tech into one of the nation’s most prominent campus-based examples for hydrogen mobility.

“Hyundai Motor Group is proud to strengthen our collaboration with Georgia Tech as we work together to accelerate the future of clean mobility. Georgia Tech’s leadership in innovation and its commitment to developing the next generation of problem-solvers make it a natural partner in advancing technologies,” said Ken Ramírez, executive vice president and head of Global Energy and Hydrogen Business at Hyundai Motor Group. “By combining the university’s excellent research with Hyundai’s global experience, we are creating the foundation for real-world solutions that will help drive the energy transition and inspire future mobility leaders.” 

Ramírez is also a 1991 Georgia Tech graduate and a member of the Georgia Tech Advisory Board. 

“It’s very fulfilling to donate a handful of our NEXO fuel cell SUVs as part of our expanding relationship with Georgia Tech. Hydrogen-powered NEXO fuel cell vehicles will immediately serve to expand the clean mobility footprint on campus while providing real-world experiences with the cutting edge of zero-emissions transportation technology,” said Randy Parker, president and CEO, Hyundai Motor North America.

“Georgia Tech has a long history of working with industry to move breakthrough technologies from the lab into the real world. By expanding our work with Hyundai, we’re advancing hydrogen research, reducing emissions on our campus, and strengthening Georgia’s role in the future of clean mobility," Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera said.

How the Partnership Drives Hydrogen Innovation and Research

The partnership includes the donation of four Hyundai NEXO fuel cell electric SUVs by Hyundai Motor North America and a hydrogen electrolyzer project, which will be installed at Georgia Tech’s North Avenue Research Area, positioning Tech as one of the most visible real-world test beds for hydrogen mobility in the U.S.

The vehicles and infrastructure will support campus operations and interdisciplinary research. Key areas of focus include:

• Engineering: Exploring hydrogen-based systems and mobility solutions.
• Sustainability: Assessing the environmental benefits of hydrogen technologies.
• Energy systems: Understanding the integration of hydrogen fuel cells into current infrastructure.
• Public policy: Evaluating the regulatory and social implications of hydrogen adoption.

This initiative connects Georgia Tech’s research enterprise with campus operations, using the Institute as a living laboratory for clean transportation technologies. Faculty and students will study:

• Real-world performance of hydrogen technology.
• Infrastructure requirements for large-scale deployment.
• Environmental impacts of hydrogen energy systems.

Insights gathered from this initiative aim to inform and accelerate the widespread use of hydrogen technology in campuses, fleets, cities, and freight corridors. The initiative also supports Georgia Tech’s strategic plan, which includes the goal of expanding the use of zero-emissions vehicles powered by sustainable energy sources.

Why Is the Partnership with Georgia Tech Key to Hyundai Motor Group’s Vision? 

The collaboration between Hyundai and Georgia Tech is a testament to the power of aligning academic expertise with corporate innovation. Beyond hydrogen energy, the partnership seeks to advance innovation in the areas of:

• Autonomous driving
• Electric vehicle (EV) batteries
• Charging infrastructure
• Materials science
• Cybersecurity

In addition, Hyundai’s presence in Georgia underscores its commitment to the region. Georgia is home to the Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America and also serves as a hub for zero-emissions transportation through HTWO Logistics, a clean logistics partnership that operates Hyundai XCIENT fuel cell heavy-duty trucks in logistics operations near Savannah. The collaboration with Georgia Tech builds on this regional foundation, reinforcing the link between education, research, and Hyundai's long-term goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2045.

What’s Next for the Partnership?

The partnership between Hyundai and Georgia Tech represents more than an investment in research. It’s a shared effort to lead the next generation of mobility advancements. Additional announcements about the partnership’s research projects, educational programs, and vehicle deployment are expected in the coming months.

Georgia Tech researchers have created a new AI model for decision-focused learning (DFL), called Diffusion-DFL. Recent tests showed it makes more accurate decisions than current approaches.

Along with optimizing industrial output, Diffusion-DFL lowers costs and reduces risk. Experiments also showed it performs across different fields. 

Diffusion-DFL doesn’t just surpass current methods; it also predicts more accurately as problem sizes grow. The model requires less computing power despite these high-performance marks, making it more accessible to smaller enterprises.

Diffusion-DFL runs on diffusion models, the same technology that powers DALL-E and other AI image generators. It is the first DFL framework based on diffusion models.

“Anyone who makes high-stakes decisions under uncertainty, including supply chain managers, energy operators, and financial planners, benefits from Diffusion-DFL,” said Zihao Zhao, a Georgia Tech Ph.D. student who led the project. 

“Instead of optimizing around a single forecast, the model evaluates many possible scenarios, so decisions account for real-world risk and become more robust.”

[Related: GT @ ICLR 2026]

To test Diffusion-DFL, the team ran experiments based on real-world settings, including:

• Factory manufacturing to meet product demand
• Power grid scheduling to meet energy demand
• Stock market portfolio optimization

In each case, Diffusion-DFL made more accurate decisions than current methods. It also performed better as problems became larger and more complex. These results confirm the model’s ability to make important decisions in real-world scenarios with noisy data and uncertainty.

The experiments also show that Diffusion-DFL is practical, not just accurate. Training diffusion models is expensive, so the team developed a way to reduce memory use. This cut training costs by more than 99.7%. As a result, Diffusion-DFL can reach more researchers and practitioners.

“Our score-function estimator cuts GPU memory from over 60 gigabytes to 0.13 with almost no loss in decision quality, reducing the requirement for massive computing resources,” Zhao said. “I hope this expands Diffusion-DFL into other domains, like healthcare, where decisions must be made quickly under complex uncertainty."

Beyond decision-making applications, Diffusion-DFL marks a shift in DFL techniques and in the broader use of generative AI models. 

In supply chain management, planners estimate future demand before deciding how much product to stock. In this DFL problem, engineers align ML models with predetermined decision objectives, like minimizing risk or reducing costs. 

One flaw of DFL methods is that they optimize around a single, deterministic prediction in an uncertain future.

Diffusion-DFL takes a different approach. Instead of making a single guess, it determines a range of possible outcomes. This leads to decisions based on many likely scenarios, rather than on a single assumed future.

To do this, the framework uses diffusion models. These generative AI models create high-quality data from images, text, and audio. 

The forward diffusion process involves adding noise to data until it becomes pure noise. Models trained via forward diffusion can reverse diffusion. This means they can start with noisy data and then produce meaningful insights from training examples. 

Real-world data is often noisy and uncertain. Traditional DFL methods struggle in these conditions, but diffusion models are designed to handle them.

Because of this, Diffusion-DFL can explore many possible outcomes and choose better actions. Like image-generation AI, the model works well with complex data from different sources. This enables its use across different industries.

“Diffusion models have achieved significant success in generative AI and image synthesis, but our work shows their potential extends far beyond that,” said Kai Wang, an assistant professor in the School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE).

“What makes Diffusion-DFL unique is that the specific downstream application guides how the model learns to handle uncertainty.

“Whether we are scheduling energy for power grids, balancing risk in financial portfolios, or developing early warning systems in healthcare, we can explicitly train these highly expressive models to navigate the unique complexities of each domain.”

Zhao and Wang collaborated with Caltech Ph.D. candidate Christopher Yeh and Harvard University postdoctoral fellow Lingkai Kong on Diffusion-DFL. Kong earned his Ph.D. in CSE from Georgia Tech in 2024.

Wang will present Diffusion-DFL on behalf of the group at the upcoming International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR 2026). Occurring April 23-27 in Rio de Janeiro, ICLR is one of the world’s most prestigious conferences dedicated to artificial intelligence research.

“ICLR is the perfect stage for Diffusion-DFL because it brings together the exact community that needs to see the bridge between generative modeling and high-stakes decision-making for real-world applications,” Wang said.

“Presenting Diffusion-DFL allows us to challenge the traditional training framework of diffusion models. It’s about sparking a broader conversation on how we can align the training objectives of generative AI directly with actual, downstream decision-making needs.”

The two‑day event took place Feb. 4 – 5, coinciding with the Critical Minerals Ministerial hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 4, which brought together more than 50 nations to strengthen and diversify global critical mineral supply chains. During this ministerial, U.K. Minister Seema Malhotra and U.S. Under Secretary of State Jacob Helberg signed a Critical Minerals Memorandum of Understanding, strengthening bilateral cooperation between the United States and the United Kingdom on critical mineral supply chains. 

These broad efforts are supported by White House Executive Order 14363, which defines the Genesis Mission and aims to accelerate scientific discovery through AI. The order identifies critical minerals supply chain resilience as a national security imperative.

In Atlanta, these themes were brought to life in real time. The GEMs-4 workshop brought together researchers, policymakers, national labs, industry leaders, and workforce organizations from both the U.S. and the U.K. to address shared challenges in technology translation, permitting, investment, and talent development. 

The state of Georgia’s integrated ecosystem, linking research universities, legacy industries, technical colleges, national labs, and public‑private partnerships, served as a case study. Presenters highlighted how existing industrial assets in the Southeast are being incorporated into emerging clean energy and critical minerals supply chains, offering a model for other regions seeking to build capabilities around extraction, processing, and manufacturing.

A U.K. member of Parliament representing Cornwall, where the U.K. has lithium reserves and deep critical mineral expertise, joined the convening, as well as representatives from the U.K. Critical Mineral Association, Camborne School of Mines, and the University of Kent. Together, they explored opportunities and challenges, from a fundamental science to a commercialization perspective grounded in real-world experience. 

The alignment between the ministerial in Washington and the expertise present in Atlanta demonstrated the value of state-level engagement and how national agreements translate into practical collaboration on the ground. 

“The Southeast has the research depth, industrial footprint, and collaborative spirit needed to lead in critical minerals innovation,” said Yuanzhi Tang, Georgia Power Professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, executive director of the Strategic Energy Institute, and founding director of the Center for Critical Mineral Solutions at Georgia Tech. “GEMs‑4 showed what’s possible when universities, industry, and government partners align around shared priorities.” 

Day one featured strategic dialogue on critical mineral resources, innovation pathways, and partnership models. A recurring theme was the co-production of critical minerals alongside major mineral commodities. “Many critical minerals are produced as byproducts of larger mining operations, making it essential to integrate recovery strategies into existing mineral industries rather than developing entirely new extraction systems,” noted Crawford Elliott, professor of geosciences at Georgia State University.

Day two transitioned to field‑based learning, led by Paul Schroeder, professor of geology at the University of Georgia. Participants visited active operations to better understand how regional industrial strengths can support national and international supply chain goals. Schroeder said, “Connecting people to the long-standing mineral extraction economy at the mining and plant sites, where the work gets done with an amazingly skilled workforce, underscores the unique role of Georgia’s place‑based capacity in advancing national and transatlantic supply chain goals.”

Organizers emphasized that resilient supply chains rely on regional capabilities built over time through university collaboration, industry partnerships, and community engagement. With three years of inter‑university coordination now underpinning the GEMS platform, the 2026 workshop demonstrated how the Southeast is contributing actionable models for U.S.-U.K. cooperation.

“Ecosystem-building at this scale requires participation from every part of the value chain, and we are encouraged by the model GEMs presents,” said Rachel Galloway, Consul General at British Consulate General Atlanta. “The collaboration across universities, industry, and government is exactly what enables long‑term impact on both sides of the Atlantic.”

Through focused dialogue and partnership-building, the symposium strengthened transatlantic collaboration, highlighted regional strengths, and accelerated innovation and translation across the critical minerals value chain, from resource characterization and processing to recycling, manufacturing, and deployment.

For more information about the GEMS initiative, visit: https://gems.research.gatech.edu/.

“The effects move slowly and appear in places people do not connect to energy,” said Tibor Besedes, professor in the School of Economics. “Oil and natural gas are part of the cost structure for an enormous range of goods.”

About 20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas flows through the waterway linking the Persian Gulf to world markets. When that flow is constrained, the impact ripples outward across industries most people never associate with an energy crisis.

“In complex supply chains, a disruption in one critical link, even if only briefly, can cascade through the system, well beyond the initial event,” says Pinar Keskinocak, chair and professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. “As delays persist and compound, interconnected systems often take a long time to recover, rebalance, and return to normal.”

Price Pressures That Arrive Quietly

Early effects are already visible. 

Jet fuel availability is tightening, and diesel prices are rising across Asia. China has ordered refineries to stop exporting fuel, creating shortages that are increasing shipping costs for U.S. imports, from consumer electronics to pharmaceuticals.

The strait is also a key corridor for naphtha, a feedstock used to produce plastics, packaging, solvents, textiles, and pharmaceutical components. Roughly 85% of Middle Eastern polyethylene exports move through the strait. 

“Consumers won't see the effect of this quickly,” Besedes says, “but the longer the strait is closed, the higher the cost will be of all of these products naphtha is used for.”

Aluminum is equally exposed. 

“Smelters require sustained, low-cost energy,” said Chris Gaffney, a professor of the practice in the Stewart School. “The Middle East accounted for roughly 21% of U.S. unwrought aluminum imports in 2025. When energy prices spike or supply is constrained, capacity is reduced or shut down, and those decisions are difficult and slow to reverse.”

Fertilizer is one of the clearest examples of delayed inflation. Natural gas is essential for its production, and Persian Gulf states account for one-third of global urea exports and half of global sulfur exports. Urea prices at the New Orleans import hub have already climbed sharply.

“We won't see the effects quickly, but rather in six to 12 months, depending on the crop and its cycle,” Besedes says. “Without or with less fertilizer, crop yields will decrease, resulting in higher prices.”

Why Hormuz Is Different From Other Chokepoints

On top of all those factors, the strait closure presents a uniquely dangerous vulnerability. 

“Unlike a port strike or canal blockage, there is no meaningful way to reroute volume,” says Gaffney. “If it is disrupted, flow is constrained rather than redirected.” Pipeline alternatives replace only a fraction of the 20 million barrels per day that normally transit the strait.

“Choke point vulnerability arises when a large portion of flow depends on a route that is hard to substitute,” said Mathieu Dahan, associate professor in the Stewart School. “Hormuz has no scalable alternatives with sufficient capacity.” 

Alan Erera, senior associate chair in the Stewart School expanded on Dahan’s point, noting that strait disruptions raise costs across manufacturing and distribution.

“Ships are rerouted onto longer paths, which drives up fuel and labor costs, ties up vessels and containers for longer periods, and ultimately raises inventory costs for shippers because capital is locked up while goods are still in transit,” Erera said.

When Geopolitics Meets Global Supply Chains

Additionally, the strait closure raises the risk of wartime miscalculation. 

“We haven’t seen a disruption on this scale since the tanker wars of the late 1980s,” said Larry Rubin, associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs. Gulf states' dependence on the strait constrains both regional actors and U.S. strategy, raising risks around crisis decision-making.

Rubin also points to a dimension most coverage has missed entirely. “One thing that has been overlooked by many commentators is the fact that the Iranian people have probably been hit the hardest economically,” he says. “They were already in a challenging situation. The Iranian economy won't recover quickly after the war.”

Resilience Has a Short Memory

Meanwhile, for the United States, “The Strategic Petroleum Reserve provides a buffer, and domestic energy production has improved resilience,” says Gaffney. “But the gap remains between enabling capacity and sustaining resilience. Policy can support infrastructure, but it cannot ensure private sector participants invest in resilience when cost pressures rise.”

For policymakers and industry leaders, the disruption reinforces a familiar pattern. "The supply chain remains optimized for efficiency rather than resilience, in part due to the high investment costs required to build flexibility," says Dahan. 

Gaffney added that resilience does improve after disruption, but that “it erodes over time if not actively maintained.”

Even if the strait reopens, higher costs and slow restart timelines mean the system will not snap back. Experts suggest that when headlines have moved on from this disruption, it will still be shaping prices across the economy. 

The paper examines various strategies for enhancing the flexibility of data center energy use. One approach is to use backup power systems, such as uninterruptible power supplies, to support the grid during emergencies. Another method involves rerouting computing jobs to different data centers in other locations to balance energy demand. The authors also discuss implementing smart scheduling techniques that shift workloads to off-peak hours, reducing strain on the grid. Additionally, they highlight adjusting processor speeds by lowering CPU (central processing unit) and GPU (graphics processing unit) clock rates to limit power consumption when needed. Finally, the paper suggests pre-cooling data center equipment to limit the energy required for cooling during peak demand periods. Notably, experimental evidence shows that underclocking GPUs can cut power consumption by 40% with only a 22% performance loss, suggesting technical feasibility for demand-response interventions.

Despite these technical options, the authors find that real-world cost considerations and reliability concerns limit widespread adoption. Data center operators generally do not change their behavior in response to electricity prices, as job revenue far outweighs energy costs under normal conditions. For example, a GPU rented at $2 per hour consumes only $0.04 worth of electricity at average prices, making curtailment unattractive except during extreme price spikes. Surveys indicate that operators are reluctant to compromise reliability or deploy backup systems for ancillary services. Consequently, price-based incentives alone are unlikely to drive meaningful flexibility.

Read more on the EPIcenter Webpage
Listen to a podcast on the research here

As new data centers continue to be built and proposed in Georgia, counties and municipalities across the state are considering how to guide this growth. EPIcenter’s data center dashboard provides policymakers, planners, researchers, and community stakeholders with a centralized resource to better understand how data center regulations are being developed and applied across Georgia and the U.S.

“Our Data Center Hub provides Georgia communities with a one-stop shop to understand how their neighbors are managing land-use regulations for data centers,” said Laura Taylor, director of EPIcenter. “It brings together clear, accessible information to help jurisdictions plan when data center growth occurs in their area.”

The dashboard is organized around five thematic areas commonly addressed in data center land-use regulations: Site Planning and Building Design, Infrastructure and Utilities, Environmental and Community Protections, Public Safety and Security, and Lifecycle Governance. Within each theme, users can explore specific regulatory topics and access the relevant ordinances enacted by Georgia communities.

To build the dashboard, EPIcenter researchers conducted a comprehensive review of municipal codes across the state.

“We reviewed municipal codes for about 180 cities and counties across Georgia and identified ordinances that specifically address data center development,” said Yang You, EPIcenter’s research associate who developed the project. “In total, we found 19 data center-specific topics that ordinances tend to cover. We analyzed ordinances across jurisdictions and organized their ordinance provisions into topics such as building placement, setbacks, infrastructure, and environmental considerations to make it easier to compare how different jurisdictions regulate data centers.”

You added that the dashboard also incorporates examples from outside of Georgia. By gathering ordinances from other states and pairing them with Georgia-specific examples, EPIcenter aims to provide a clear framework to help communities efficiently address data center land-use regulation.

The Georgia Data Center Ordinance Hub is available through the Energy Policy and Innovation Center website.

Reliable energy is required to keep safe in cold winters and hot summers, making it a matter of national security. There are also vying economic policies to consider, political and financial incentives to navigate, and questions of social and economic inequality.

Experts in Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts examine the challenges we face with the U.S. energy transition, and work to help make it safe, fair, and effective for all.

• Challenge No. 1: Managing National Security — with Adam N. Stulberg, professor and chair of the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs.
• Challenge No. 2: Confronting Inequality — with Bijesh Mishra, a postdoctoral scholar in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy.
• Challenge No. 3: Choosing the Right Economic Policies — with Bobby Harris, an assistant professor in the School of Economics.
• Challenge No. 4: Navigating Financial and Political Incentives — with Kate Pride Brown, a sociologist in the School of History and Sociology.

Read the article on the Ivan Allen College website.

Set in the heart of Tech Square on the Georgia Tech campus, this year’s event explores how energy systems, materials, technologies, supply chains, and policy must evolve in response to AI’s accelerating impact. As digital infrastructure expands and computation intensifies, the need for reliable, resilient, and sustainable power has never been more urgent. 

“Energy Day reflects Georgia Tech’s strength in connecting world-class research in materials and components with the infrastructure and partnerships needed to translate discovery into scalable energy technologies that serve industry, society, and the future economy,” said Eric Vogel, executive director of the IMS and the Hightower Professor in Materials Science and Engineering. 

Energy Day 2026 also marks an important milestone with the introduction of its first group of corporate sponsors: GE Vernova, Southern Company, Georgia Power, ExxonMobil, Southwire Spark, Gems Setra, and Tektronix. Their support reflects a shared commitment to advancing energy solutions. 

“Tektronix is excited to be part of Energy Day because advancing the future of energy starts with precise measurement and trusted insights,” said Christopher Bohn, president of Tektronix. “From power electronics and high voltage systems to grid scale renewables and AI driven control technologies, the breakthroughs discussed here directly align with the innovations we support through our products and solutions. Collaborating with Georgia Tech allows us to engage early with emerging research and the next generation of engineers—critical collaborators in building a cleaner, smarter, and more resilient energy ecosystem.”

The keynote address will be delivered by Vanessa Z. Chan, a nationally recognized leader at the intersection of innovation, commercialization, and emerging technologies. Chan will provide insights on accelerating technological discovery, emphasizing how AI is transforming energy and materials design. She will discuss how commercialization strategies must rapidly evolve across multidisciplinary energy domains from grid modernization to advanced batteries and clean manufacturing.

Building on the themes introduced in the keynote, the program transitions into a fireside chat with Georgia Tech EVPR Tim Lieuwen featuring Amit Kulkarni and Jim Walsh. Kulkarni is vice president of Product Management and Strategy for the Gas Power business within GE Vernova, where he oversees the world’s largest portfolio of power generation equipment. Walsh, vice president of GE Vernova’s Consulting Services, leads teams providing innovative solutions across the full spectrum of power generation, delivery, and utilization.

Next comes a policy-focused panel that will explore the surge in power demand driven by AI, how the United States is addressing today’s most urgent energy challenges, and the long-term implications of today’s decisions for a sustainable energy future. Bringing together leading voices in U.S. environmental and energy policy, the panel features Joe Aldy of Harvard University and former special assistant to the president for Energy and Environment; Al McGartland of New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity and former Environmental Protection Agency lead economist and director of the National Center for Environmental Economics; and Kevin Rennert, fellow and director of the Comprehensive Climate Strategies Program at Resources for the Future and former staff member on the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

The second panel focuses on critical materials — the foundation of advanced energy systems and digital technologies. As AI, data centers, and advanced energy technologies drive demand for critical materials, securing them now requires integration and coordination across the entire value chain. Panelists include Rachel Galloway, British consul general in Atlanta; Vijay Murugesan, head of Materials Intelligence and Digital Innovation at Amazon; Colin Spellmeyer, executive strategic sourcing leader at GE Vernova;  Charles Sims, Tennessee Valley Authority Distinguished Professor of Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Tennessee; and Nortey Yeboah, principal engineer at Southern Company. Together, they will offer perspectives on the policy and economic frameworks shaping the energy supply chain, from developing raw resources to manufacturing the technologies essential to future energy systems.

In the afternoon, participants can dive deeper into specialized topics through three focused technical tracks. 

• “Meeting the Demand for Power” will examine how emerging technologies, advanced nuclear systems, and renewable integration can work together to deliver reliable, resilient electricity.
• “Data Center Infrastructure and Resources” will explore innovations in thermal management technologies, energy-efficient computing, and the broader resource impacts of expanding digital infrastructure.
• “Grid Technologies and Markets” will highlight strategies for strengthening grid capacity, incorporating demand-side management, and optimizing carbon performance as energy systems evolve.

“Meeting the rapidly rising electricity demand driven by AI requires bold ideas, coordinated action, and research that moves at the speed of innovation,” said Yuanzhi Tang, executive director of the SEI. “Energy Day 2026 brings together the people and expertise needed to shape resilient, sustainable energy systems for the future. At Georgia Tech, we see this event as a catalyst for new partnerships, new solutions, and a shared commitment to strengthening the nation’s energy foundation.”

Energy Day 2026 is designed for researchers advancing emerging energy technologies, policymakers navigating shifting regulatory and geopolitical landscapes, industry professionals seeking insight into emerging tools and supply chains, and students preparing to enter one of the most consequential sectors of the decade. It also welcomes anyone interested in AI, sustainability, electrification, and critical materials. 

Join us to explore the future of energy. To learn more and register, visit: Energy Day 2026.

Georgia Tech’s Qi Tang is building machine learning (ML) models to accelerate nuclear fusion research, making it more affordable and more accurate. Backed by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Tang’s work brings clean, sustainable energy closer to reality.

Tang has received an Early Career Research Program (ECRP) award from the DOE Office of Science. The grant supports Tang with $875,000 disbursed over five years to craft ML and data processing tools that help scientists analyze massive datasets from nuclear experiments and simulations.

Tang is the first faculty member from Georgia Tech’s College of Computing and School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) to receive the ECRP. He is the seventh Georgia Tech researcher to earn the award and the only GT awardee among this year’s 99 recipients.

More than a milestone, the award reflects a shift in how nuclear research is done. Today, progress depends on computing and data science as much as on physics and engineering.

“I am honored and excited to receive the ECRP award through DOE’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research program, an organization I care about deeply,” said Tang, an assistant professor in the School of CSE. 

“I am grateful to my former colleagues at Los Alamos National Laboratory and collaborators at other national laboratories, including Lawrence Livermore, Sandia, and Argonne. I am also thankful for my Ph.D. students at Georgia Tech, whose dedication and creativity make this award possible.”

[Related: New Faculty Applies High-Performance Computing, Scientific Machine Learning Interests to Studies in Plasma Physics]

A problem in nuclear research is that fusion simulations are challenging to understand and use. These simulations generate enormous datasets that are too large to store, move, and analyze efficiently.

In his ECRP proposal to DOE, Tang introduced new ML methods to improve the analysis and storage of particle data.

Tang’s approach balances shrinking data so it is easier to store and transfer while preserving the most important scientific features. His multiscale ML models are informed by physics, so the reduced data still reflects how fusion systems really behave.

With Tang’s research, scientists can run larger, more realistic fusion models and analyze results more quickly. This accelerates progress toward practical fusion energy.

“In contrast to generic black-box-type compression tools, we aim at preserving the intrinsic structures of the particle dataset during the data reduction processes,” Tang said. 

“Taking this approach, we can meet our goal of achieving high-fidelity preservation of critical physics with minimum loss of information.”

Computing is essential in modern research because of the amount of data produced and captured from experiments and simulations. In the era of exascale supercomputers, data movement is a greater bottleneck than actual computation.

DOE operates three of the world’s four exascale supercomputers. These machines can calculate one quintillion (a billion billion) operations per second.

The exascale era began in 2022 with the launch of Frontier at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Aurora followed in 2023 at Argonne National Laboratory. El Capitan arrived in 2024 at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

With Tang’s data reduction approaches, all of DOE’s supercomputers spend more time on science and less time waiting for data transfers.

“Qi’s work in computational plasma physics and nuclear fusion modeling has been groundbreaking,” said Haesun Park, Regents’ Professor and Chair of the School of CSE. 

“We are proud of Qi and what this award means for him, Georgia Tech, and the Department of Energy toward leveraging computation to solve challenges in science and engineering, such as sustainable energy."

Previous Georgia Tech recipients of DOE Early Career Research Program awards include:

Itamar Kimchi, assistant professor, School of Physics

Sourabh Saha, assistant professor, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

Wenjing Lao, associate professor, School of Mathematics

Ryan Lively, Thomas C. DeLoach Professor, School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering

Josh Kacher, associate professor, School of Materials Science and Engineering

Devesh Ranjan, Eugene C. Gwaltney Jr. School Chair and professor, Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

The Department of Energy Office of Science recently released two reports through its Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program. The reports were produced by workshops that brought together researchers from universities, national labs, government, and industry to set priorities for scientific computing.

Professor Felix Herrmann served on the organizing committee for the Workshop on Inverse Methods for Complex Systems under Uncertainty. Assistant Professor Peng Chen joined Herrmann as a workshop participant, contributing expertise in data science and machine learning.

Inverse methods work backward from outcomes to find their causes. Scientists use these tools to study complex systems, like designing new materials with targeted properties and using past wildfires to map vulnerable areas and behavior of future fires.

The ASCR report highlighted Herrmann’s work on seismic exploration and monitoring through digital twins. Founded on inverse methods, digital twins upgrade from static models to virtual systems that accurately mirror their physical counterparts. 

Digital twins integrate real-time data sources, including fluid flows, monitoring and control systems, risk assessments, and human decisions. These models also account for uncertainty and address data gaps or limitations. 

The DOE organized the workshop to support the growing role of inverse modeling. The group identified four priority research directions (PRDs) to guide future work. The PRDs are:

• PRD 1: Discovering, exploiting, and preserving structure
• PRD 2: Identifying and overcoming model limitations
• PRD 3: Integrating disparate multimodal and/or dynamic data
• PRD 4: Solving goal-oriented inverse problems for downstream tasks

“A digital twin is a system you can control, like to optimize operations or to minimize risk,” said Herrmann, who holds joint appointments in the Schools of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Computational Science and Engineering.

“Digital twins give you a principled way to consider uncertainties, which there are a lot in subsurface monitoring. If you inject carbon dioxide too fast, you will will increase the pressure and may fracture the rock. If you inject too slow, then the process may become too costly. Digital twins help us make balanced decisions under uncertainty.”

Supercomputers, algorithms, and artificial intelligence now power modern science. However, these tools consume enormous amounts of energy. This raises concerns about how to sustain computing and scientific research as we know them in the decades ahead.

Professors Rich Vuduc and Hyesoon Kim co-authored the report from the Workshop on Energy-Efficient Computing for Science. At the three-day ASCR workshop, participants identified five key research directions:

• PRD 1: Co-design energy-efficient hardware devices and architectures for important workloads
• PRD 2: Define the algorithmic foundations of energy-efficient scientific computing
• PRD 3: Reconceptualize software ecosystems for energy efficiency
• PRD 4: Enable energy-efficient data management for data centers, instruments, and users
• PRD 5: Develop integrated, scalable energy measurement and modeling capabilities for next-generation computing systems

“I’m cautiously optimistic about the future of energy-efficient computing. The ASCR report says, from a technological point of view, there are things we can do,” said Vuduc.

“The report lays out paths for how we might design better apps, hardware systems, and algorithms that will use less energy. This is recognition that we should think about how architectures and software work together to drive down energy usage for systems.”

Tang will lead the strategic vision, interdisciplinary research efforts, and internal and external partnerships at SEI, strengthening connections across Georgia Tech’s Colleges, Interdisciplinary Research Institutes (IRI), the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), and external partners to advance energy-related initiatives.

Founded in 2004, SEI is one of Georgia Tech’s IRIs and serves as a campuswide hub for energy research, education, and engagement.

Tang is the Georgia Power Professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Her research and leadership focus on advancing secure, circular, and sustainable energy systems by integrating Earth, environmental, biological, materials, and sustainability sciences and innovations. She previously served as an initiative lead on critical minerals and sustainable resources at SEI as well as the associate director for interdisciplinary research at the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems.

“Professor Tang brings a strong record of research impact, leadership of complex initiatives, and a collaborative approach that will help elevate Georgia Tech’s energy research enterprise,” said Julia Kubanek, vice president for Interdisciplinary Research at Georgia Tech. “She brings deep expertise in fundamental Earth and environmental science, including water, soil, and energy research, while also leading state and regional partnerships in emerging, applied areas such as critical minerals. Most importantly, she is community-minded with excellent listening and consensus-building skills.”

As executive director, Tang will develop and communicate a unifying vision to advance interdisciplinary energy research and strategic thought leadership at Georgia Tech, integrating expertise across engineering, sciences, computing, business, design, economics, policy, and the humanities.

Tang is also the founding director of the Center for Critical Mineral Solutions and leads a multidisciplinary coalition spanning three University System of Georgia institutions. The coalition connects research, industry, and policy to build Georgia’s critical minerals innovation ecosystem, while driving resource advancement, workforce development, and economic impact.

“I'm honored to serve as the executive director of SEI. Georgia Tech’s energy research and the people behind it have always inspired me. I’m eager to listen, learn, and work alongside our community,” said Tang. “SEI connects research excellence with real-world impact, and I look forward to partnering across campus, industry, government, and communities to translate breakthrough ideas into solutions that strengthen energy security, reliability, and affordability.”

About the Strategic Energy Institute

The Strategic Energy Institute (SEI) serves as a system integrator for more than 1,000 Georgia Tech researchers working across the entire energy value chain. SEI brings together expertise to address complex energy challenges, from commercializing scalable technologies to informing long-term energy strategy and policy. Through research, education, community building, resource development, and thought leadership, SEI mobilizes Georgia Tech’s collective strengths to advance reliable, affordable, and lower-carbon energy solutions for a growing global demand.

As artificial intelligence (AI) drives explosive growth in data centers, communities across the U.S. are facing rising electricity costs, new industrial development, and mounting strain on an aging power grid.

At Georgia Tech, several faculty members are approaching these sustainability challenges from different but complementary angles: examining how data center policy affects local communities, modeling how AI-driven demand reshapes regional energy systems, and building tools that help the public understand the tradeoffs embedded in grid planning. Together, their work highlights how better data, thoughtful policy, and public engagement can guide more resilient and equitable decisions in an AI-powered future.

AI’s Hidden Footprint: How Data Centers Reshape Communities

Ahmed Saeed studies the infrastructure most people never see. An assistant professor in the School of Computer Science and a Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS) Faculty Fellow, Saeed focuses on how data centers — the backbone of modern AI — are built, operated, and regulated, and what their growth means for host communities.

“Data centers are the infrastructure for our digital life, so more of them are necessary to keep doing what we’re doing,” he said.

Data center energy consumption could double or triple by 2028, accounting for up to 12% of U.S. electricity use, according to a report by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. U.S. spending on data center construction jumped nearly 70% between May 2023 and May 2024, according to the American Edge Project.

Georgia is an AI data center hub, ranked fourth globally, with $4.6 billion in AI-related venture capital invested across 368 deals, the American Edge Project reported. At a recent town hall in DeKalb County, Georgia, Saeed helped residents connect AI’s promise to its local consequences. Training large AI models can require tens of thousands of graphics processing units (GPUs) running for days or weeks, driving an unprecedented wave of data center construction. AI-focused chips, he noted, can consume 10 to 14 times more power than traditional processors.

That demand often shows up as pressure on local infrastructure. Communities are increasingly concerned about electricity and water use, grid upgrades, and who ultimately pays. In Virginia, Saeed pointed to a legal dispute in which consumer advocates warned that data centers could raise electricity bills by 5% in the short term and up to 50% over time, while utilities argued those investments were inevitable and could benefit customers in the long run.

Environmental concerns add another layer. Saeed cited controversies over water use and backup diesel generators in states, including Georgia and Tennessee, alongside a recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruling that tightened generator regulations. While diesel generators are clearly harmful, he cautioned that long-term, rigorous evidence linking data centers to regional health impacts remains limited.

Saeed’s research aims to reduce those impacts directly. By optimizing how workloads are scheduled across large server fleets, his team has demonstrated power savings of 4 – 12%, a meaningful gain if U.S. data centers approach projected levels of up to 12% of national electricity use by 2028.

For Saeed, data centers are akin to highways: essential to modern life, disruptive to nearby communities, and shaped by policy choices. The question, he argues, is not whether AI infrastructure should exist, but how transparently and fairly it is built.

Economist Probes the Energy Costs of the AI Boom

While headlines often frame AI as an energy crisis, Georgia Tech environmental and energy economist and BBISS Faculty Fellow Tony Harding is focused on measuring its real — and uneven — impacts. Harding, an assistant professor in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy, uses economic modeling to examine how AI adoption affects energy use, emissions, and local communities.

In recent work published in Environmental Research Letters, Harding and his co-author analyzed how productivity gains from AI could influence national energy demand. Their findings suggest that, at a macro level, AI-related activity may increase annual U.S. energy use by about 0.03% and CO₂ emissions by roughly 0.02%.

“Those numbers are small in the context of the overall economy,” Harding said. “But the impacts are highly uneven.”

That unevenness is evident in where data centers are built. While Northern Virginia remains the country’s top data center hub, with 343 operational data centers, states like Georgia, which currently has 94 operational data centers, are rapidly attracting facilities due to reliable power and favorable tax policies. 

Harding’s latest research focuses on local effects, asking why data centers cluster in urban areas, how they influence housing markets, what happens to electricity prices, and whether they exacerbate water stress. Early evidence suggests large facilities can increase local electricity rates, contributing to public backlash and regulatory response. In Georgia, the Public Service Commission has begun requiring new, high power draw customers (like data centers) to cover more of the costs associated with grid expansion.

Harding’s goal is to give policymakers better evidence to design incentives and guardrails. “To manage these technologies responsibly,” he said, “we need a clear picture of their intended and unintended consequences.”

Gamifying a Strained and Aging Power Grid

Daniel Molzahn is tackling another side of the problem: how to modernize an aging power grid under growing demand. Electricity demand is expected to rise about 25% by 2030, driven by data centers, electric vehicles, and broadscale electrification. At the same time, much of the U.S. electricity grid is nearing the end of its lifespan, with many transformers being decades old.

To make these challenges tangible, Molzahn, an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, developed a browser-based game with a group of students through Georgia Tech’s Vertically Integrated Projects program called Current Crisis. Players take on the role of a utility decision-maker, balancing reliability, wildfire risk, renewable integration, and affordability.

The game grew out of Molzahn’s National Science Foundation CAREER award and reflects his belief that complex systems are best understood experientially. Its initial focus is wildfire resilience, modeling how grid infrastructure can both spark and suffer damage from fires.

But resilience comes at a cost. Burying power lines, for example, reduces wildfire risk but dramatically increases expenses. Players must confront the same tradeoffs utilities face: improve reliability or keep rates low.

Molzahn hopes the game will help students and the public grapple with the realities of planning future power systems. “These choices aren’t abstract,” he said. “They shape affordability, resilience, and our path toward a cleaner grid.”

The project now involves nearly 40 students from across campus, supported by Sustainability NEXT funding and a collaboration with Jessica Roberts, former BBISS Faculty Fellow and director of the Technology-Integrated Learning Environments (TILES) Lab in the School of Interactive Computing.

“As a learning scientist, I look at how to engage people with science and scientific data and get people having conversations they might not otherwise have,” says Roberts, who hopes the seed grant helps the team determine first that they are going in the right direction and, second, how to broaden the impact.

One student, Stella Quinto Lima, a graduate research assistant in Human-Centered Computing, has made the game the focus of her doctoral thesis. Through the game, she wants players to notice their misconceptions about the power grid, energy use, and AI, and to use critical thinking to identify, question, and possibly undo those misconceptions.

 “I hope that we can really engage adults and help them see it’s not black and white. The game is not only about power grids, but how AI affects the grid, how it affects our lives, and how it will impact our future.”

The team plans to expand the game’s features, use it in outreach programs, and analyze player decisions as a source of data to study energy-system decision-making.

“We want to change the conversation about power and power grid stability, reliability, and sustainability, Roberts said, “and find a way to get this message to a larger public.”

Georgia Tech researchers say HPC and artificial intelligence (AI) advances this year are poised to improve how people power their homes, design safer buildings, and travel through cities.

According to Qi Tang, scientists will take progressive steps toward cleaner, sustainable energy through nuclear fusion in 2026. 

“I am very hopeful about the role of advanced computing and AI in making fusion a clean energy source,” said Tang, an assistant professor in the School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE). 

“Fusion systems involve many interconnected processes happening across different scales. Modern simulations, combined with data-driven methods, allow us to bring these pieces together into a unified picture.”

Tang’s research connects HPC and machine learning with fusion energy and plasma physics. This year, Tang is continuing work on large-scale nuclear fusion models.

Only a few experimental fusion reactors exist worldwide compared to more than 400 nuclear fission reactors. Tang’s work supports a broader effort to turn fusion from a promising idea into a practical energy source.

Nuclear fusion occurs in plasma, the fourth state of matter, where gas is heated to millions of degrees. In this extreme state, electrons are stripped from atoms, creating a hot soup of fast-moving ions and free electrons. In plasma, hydrogen atoms overcome their natural electrical repulsion, collide, and fuse together. This releases energy that can power cities and homes.

Computers interpret extreme temperatures, densities, pressures, and plasma particle motion as massive datasets. Tang works to assimilate these data types from computer models and real-world experiments.

To do this, he and other researchers rely on machine learning approaches to analyze data across models and experiments more quickly and to produce more accurate predictions. Over time, this will allow scientists to test and improve fusion reactor designs toward commercial use. 

Beyond energy and nuclear engineering, Umar Khayaz sees broader impacts for HPC in 2026.

“HPC is the need of the day in every field of engineering sciences, physics, biology, and economics,” said Khayaz, a CSE Ph.D. student in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. 

“HPC is important enough to say that we need to employ resources to also solve social problems.”

Khayaz studies dynamic fracture and phase-field modeling. These areas explore how materials break under sudden, rapid loads. 

Like nuclear fusion, Khayaz says dynamic fracture problems are complex and data-intensive. In 2026, he expects to see more computing resources and computational capabilities devoted to understanding these problems and other emerging civil engineering challenges.

CSE Ph.D. student Yiqiao (Ahren) Jin sees a similar relationship between infrastructure and self-driving vehicles. He believes AI will innovate this area in 2026.

At Georgia Tech, Jin develops efficient multimodal AI systems. An autonomous vehicle is a multimodal system that uses camera video, laser sensors, language instructions, and other inputs to navigate city streets under changing scenarios like traffic and weather patterns.

Jin says multimodal research will move beyond performance benchmarks this year. This shift will lead to computer systems that can reason despite uncertainty and explain their decisions. In result, engineers will redefine how they evaluate and deploy autonomous systems in safety-critical settings.

“Many foundational problems in perception, multimodal reasoning, and agent coordination are being actively addressed in 2026. These advances enable a transition from isolated autonomous systems to safer, coordinated autonomous vehicle fleets,” Jin said. 

“As these systems scale, they have the potential to fundamentally improve transportation safety and efficiency.”

The interactive dashboard compiles and visualizes data gathered by Matisoff, along with Program and Operations Manager Michael Morley, offering a comprehensive view of SAF production, feedstock availability, and policy trends.

EPIcenter Research Associate Yang You has designed the dashboard to translate complex datasets into policy-relevant insights for decision-makers. By organizing key metrics into interactive visuals, the dashboard helps stakeholders assess market readiness and identify regulatory actions that could accelerate SAF adoption.

Emphasizing the importance of data-driven insights, Matisoff said, “The Department of Energy has a Grand Challenge to produce 3 billion gallons a year of Sustainable Aviation Fuel by 2030, and 35 billion gallons a year by 2050. By compiling and visualizing SAF data, we can help policymakers and researchers understand progress towards these goals, where the key opportunities and bottlenecks are – and how to move forward effectively”. 

Why SAF Matters
While aviation only accounts for about 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is a rapidly growing share, and decarbonizing this sector is considered one of the most challenging aspects of the energy transition. Produced from renewable feedstocks, sustainable aviation fuel offers a pathway to reduce lifecycle emissions from air travel without requiring major changes to aircraft or infrastructure. However, SAF production and deployment face hurdles related to cost, supply chain development, and policy support.

EPIcenter’s Director Laura Taylor highlighted the dashboard’s role in addressing these challenges:
“Sustainable aviation fuel is a cornerstone of decarbonizing air travel, but the market is complex and rapidly evolving. The dashboard provides clarity by organizing the relevant data in a way that’s accessible and actionable for decision-makers.”

“This tool is meant to bridge analysis and action,” said You. “By visualizing SAF production, capacity, and offtake dynamics, the dashboard allows policymakers and stakeholders to see where the market is moving, where gaps remain, and how targeted infrastructure investments or supportive policies could unlock scale.”

The EPIcenter SAF Dashboard is intended as a resource for industry leaders, policymakers, and researchers working to accelerate SAF adoption. By providing transparent, data-driven insights, Georgia Tech aims to support informed decisions that advance innovation and sustainability in aviation.

To explore the dashboard and learn more about Georgia Tech’s work on sustainable aviation fuel, visit EPIcenter’s SAF page. 

“While we often talk about food and housing insecurity, fewer people recognize energy as a basic necessity that shapes not only comfort, but also safety and stress,” said Assistant Professor Michelle Graff, who co-authored the paper published in JAMA Network Open.

Analyzing data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, the researchers found that 43% of households experienced energy insecurity in the past year. Among respondents who reduced spending on necessities to cover energy bills, nearly 39% reported symptoms of anxiety and 32% reported symptoms of depression — more than twice the incidence among respondents who didn’t need to make that tradeoff.

“Being able to afford your home does not guarantee you can afford to safely heat, cool, or power it,” Graff said.

Such instability disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic households, renters, and families dependent on electronic medical devices, Graff said.

And while the study was not designed to explain whether energy insecurity causes mental health issues or some other dynamic is at work, Graff said it’s incontrovertible that these groups face compounding stressors. Living in inefficient housing can lead to higher bills and unsafe temperatures, disrupting sleep and health. When combined with the financial anxiety of potential utility shutoffs and the need to sacrifice food or medicine to pay bills, these trade-offs create a cycle of chronic stress, she said.

Among other recommendations, Graff said healthcare providers should start screening for energy insecurity just as they do for food insecurity.

“We view this primarily as a data-collection initiative designed to generate the evidence needed to inform future policy recommendations and program improvements,” Graff said.

Graff is continuing to explore these issues with Carter School graduate students, including recent work on state-level aid implementation with Ph.D. student Ryan Anthony and upcoming research with other students on how energy insecurity impacts eviction rates.

The article, “Energy Insecurity and Mental Health Symptoms in US Adults,” was published Oct. 27, 2025, in JAMA Network Open. It is available at https://doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.39479.

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Deepakraj “Deepak” Divan

Professor Emeritus (2004-2025) 
Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar 
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering 
Founder, Georgia Tech Center for Distributed Energy 

Deepakraj “Deepak” Divan is a globally recognized innovator in power electronics and grid transformation. He was awarded the IEEE Medal in Power Engineering in 2024.

He holds over 85 U.S. and international patents and has authored 400 refereed publications. His pioneering work on soft‑switching converters—integral for efficient energy storage, EV charging, and industrial controls—has spurred a global $70 billion power electronics industry.  

Divan laid the groundwork for grid‑forming inverter control, enabling high-renewables integration. He is the co-author of Energy 2040: Aligning Innovation, Economics and Decarbonization, named by Forbes as one of the “10 Essential Books and Podcasts Every Leader Needs in 2025”. 

“Being named an NAI Fellow is a tremendous honor,” said Divan. “It reflects years of effort to rethink how electricity is delivered and managed to solve real problems and to drive practical innovations that matter.” 

 As the founder of Georgia Tech’s Center for Distributed Energy, he led research that transforms electricity delivery through analytics, monitoring, and optimization.  

An entrepreneur, Divan co-founded Varentec (backed by Bill Gates and Khosla Ventures) and seeded ventures including GridBlock, Soft Switching Technologies, Innovolt, and Smart Wires—raising over $500 million. A National Academy of Engineering member and IEEE Fellow, he champions scalable energy-access solutions worldwide.