EAST-WEST DIGITAL: How is East-West Digital Redefining the Future of Energy?
Iberdrola, one of the world’s largest energy utilities, has launched East-West Digital to deliver AI-powered solutions that advance sustainability and efficiency for energy companies around the world. Combining deep industry knowledge with cutting-edge digital innovation, East-West Digital supports utilities and energy users in optimising performance and building a more sustainable energy future.
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The global energy sector is under unprecedented pressure. As the urgency to achieve sustainability grows, companies are searching for scalable, intelligent, and reliable solutions to manage increasingly complex energy systems. Electrification, renewable integration, and the need for operational efficiency demand far more than gentle progress. They demand transformation.
At the forefront of this evolution is East-West Digital, launched by Iberdrola in May 2025 to deliver AI-powered products that advance sustainability across the global energy industry. The company builds on nearly a decade of innovation led by Iberdrola Innovation Middle East, Iberdrola’s technology hub based in Qatar Science and Technology Park, which has been pioneering AI-based digital tools for networks and sustainable power since 2016. While Iberdrola Innovation Middle East continues to focus on research and development, East-West Digital transforms these innovations into ready-to-deploy products and platforms for energy companies worldwide.
Santiago Bañales, Managing Director of Iberdrola Innovation Middle East and CEO of East-West Digital, is an experienced leader at the intersection of technology and energy. He has been spearheading Iberdrola Innovation Middle East’s operation since its inception almost a decade ago and now leads East-West Digital. “We collaborate with different businesses across Iberdrola from across the world,” he explains. “We develop AI-based solutions for the energy sector, applied through Iberdrola. In the last nine years, we have been defining different use cases across 100 projects including the integration of renewables, the connection of smart networks, and electrification to meet demand, and we have been applying these ideas across the world, mainly in Spain, the UK, Brazil, the USA, and Australia.”
This global reach is built on strong foundations in Qatar, where Iberdrola Innovation Middle East continues to drive the research and development behind many of East-West Digital’s products. “Our base for development is in Qatar and we have systems engineers, designers, digital architects, data scientists, and they cooperate with other Iberdrola departments from around the world,” Bañales continues. “They design, develop and deploy these solutions, working closely with various collaborators including universities, startups, and private companies that are both local and global.”
PIONEERING NEW MODELS
The challenges facing the sector are profound. According to the International Energy Agency, electrification today accounts for around % of final energy demand. The Net Zero emissions scenario by 2050 estimates that this figure will approach , encompassing sectors such as transportation and heating that are currently powered primarily by conventional energy sources. The resulting complexity requires new approaches, and this is where East-West Digital sees its opportunity.
“The goal for East-West Digital is to disrupt the way we currently plan, operate, and maintain power systems,” Bañales tells Energy Focus. “By integrating AI with traditional planning and operational models, we can anticipate challenges, optimise performance, and make energy systems more resilient.”
This philosophy underpins both Iberdrola Innovation Middle East and East-West Digital. “We launched the new company as part of the 2025 ‘Qatar Economic Forum, Powered by Bloomberg’ and we are already leveraging on the innovations that have been nurtured in recent years within Iberdrola, one of the top utilities in the world, to optimise and commercialise globally,” Bañales explains. “We are capitalising on the unique knowledge and unique applications that we have to help other utilities and energy users to manage energy in a better way.”
Projects already in progress reflect this ambition. Among them is energy storage optimisation, one of the most pressing needs for a renewable-heavy system. “A product we are currently implementing focuses on managing storage,” Bañales notes. “Storage is key to the ongoing evolution of the energy industry because it provides the flexibility needed to continuously balance generation and demand. It is a complex asset to plan and operate, as it can participate in several markets such as arbitrage, frequency, voltage, and capacity. Deciding how to engage across these different markets requires a highly sophisticated optimisation process.”
IMPACT THROUGH DIGITAL PRODUCTS
At the core of East-West Digital’s mission is a portfolio of intelligent products designed to make energy systems more efficient, flexible, and sustainable.
The first product theme centers on asset optimisation and maintenance, where predictive digital tools help extend the lifetime of energy infrastructure and reduce downtime. A second product theme, grid planning and stability, designing and delivering tools that support network planning and regulatory needs, helping grid operators integrate more renewable energy by leveraging analytical and generative AI.
A third focus, flexibility and distributed energy integration, offers platforms for battery optimisation and helps to realise the flexibility potential of buildings, EV fleets and other critical loads to actively support the wider energy system. Finally, East-West Digital’s work in smart buildings and sustainability management focuses on creating tools that optimise energy use, cost, and comfort at the building level. The goal is also to expand the impact by addressing the critical Water-Energy-Food nexus, an issue of strategic importance for the GCC region.
Together, these themes translate years of innovation into practical, scalable solutions. Tested and refined within Iberdrola’s global operations, they position East-West Digital to deliver proven, market-ready products that respond to the world’s most pressing energy challenges.
INFRASTRUCTURE BEHIND INNOVATION
In addition, digitalisation is a core theme running through East West Digital. The business is positioned not as hardware suppliers, but as digital enabler offering Software-as-a-Service platforms to utilities, asset owners, and end users.
“Our supply chain surrounds our user platforms. We operate a Software-as-a-Service model, which means we deliver our products across our own digital platforms,” Bañales outlines. “To do that, we collaborate with a range of partners, including some of the world’s leading digital platform providers, prominent IoT companies, and cloud-based solutions providers. We use APIs and other technologies to bring data into our platforms, while also integrating hardware sensors that collect it.”
LEVERAGING IBERDROLA ECOSYSTEM
East-West Digital’s strength lies in the scale and trust of the Iberdrola, which provides a global platform for innovation, deployment, and credibility. “One of the crucial components of our value proposition and our competitive advantage is that we are part of the Iberdrola Group,” Bañales explains. That means our innovation have been deployed by a global leader. We are also independent from a technology point of view. We combine different solutions and different providers, and we are very dynamic to ensure we always work with the technologies best suited to our strategy.”
This agility also defines East-West Digital’s approach for partnerships. The company partners across the ecosystem, from universities and startups to major digital and IoT providers, to accelerate innovation and expand access to advanced tools. “Our commercial model is to collaborate with other companies and integrators so that we complement each other’s value proposition,” says Bañales. “Our goal is to enhance what already exists, not reinvent it.”
LOOKING AHEAD
Bañales’s ambition is clear: to achieve global impact in the coming years and see East-West Digital recognised as a leading reference in digital energy solutions. “When change happens this fast, the key is to move decisively,” he says. “We want to redefine how energy systems are managed and create real value through data and collaboration.”
“We want to disrupt, we want to change the game,” smiles Bañales. “East-West Digital is rethinking the way we operate energy markets using AI.”
At a time when the world urgently needs new solutions, East-West Digital is helping define what the future of intelligent, data-driven energy looks like, and making it happen today.