This is an edited extract from the speech of Masato Kanda, President, Asian Development Bank (ADB), at the Asia Clean Energy Forum 2026.  

Geopolitical Disruptions and Rising Energy Demand 

The ongoing conflict in the Middle East is delivering a direct hit to the global economic engine. Geopolitical disruptions do not respect borders. They affect fuel, freight, finance, and factories. They also spike trade uncertainty and land squarely on the household budgets of the communities that can least afford it.

At the same time, we are facing an unprecedented, staggering surge in electricity demand. This isn’t just being driven by rapid urbanization. It is being fueled by the explosive expansion of power-intensive AI data centers and deep electrification of our economies. Add to that the severe heatwaves currently straining our domestic grids, and the reality becomes obvious: national energy systems simply cannot keep up on their own.

Meanwhile, more than 350 million people across our region still have limited access to power, and over 53 million have no access at all. That means millions of families are trapped in poor health conditions, with limited education, and zero economic mobility.

Building Resilient and Connected Energy Systems 

The old way of doing business is no longer viable. We cannot afford slow, country-by-country, isolated development responses. If we attempt to operate our national energy systems in total isolation from one another, we will fail.

That is why this year’s theme—Beyond Transition: Building Secure, Resilient, Inclusive, and Intelligent Energy Systems—is so critical. To survive and thrive, we must build deeply connected, highly intelligent networks. ADB has updated its Energy Policy to allow us to move aggressively on this front. We are supporting our member countries as they diversify critical mineral supply chains and scale up clean energy manufacturing. We are also driving a sensible examination of low-carbon baseload options, including advanced nuclear technologies and small modular reactors, to guarantee grid reliability.

We are embracing digital technology and AI as core tools to optimize energy generation, predict grid faults, manage smart grid integration, and even accelerate the discovery and processing of the critical minerals we desperately need.

Pan-Asia Power Grid Initiative

PAGI (Pan-Asia Power Grid Initiative) is our answer to a fragmented world.

It shifts Asia and the Pacific away from small-scale, bilateral projects and moves us toward coordinated, region-wide multilateral power trade. An interconnected regional system acts as a collective shield. It allows surplus clean energy generated in one country to seamlessly balance the deficit in another. By 2035, PAGI aims to mobilize $50 billion to turn continent-wide interconnection into reality. 

Half of that total target—$25 billion—will come directly from ADB’s own balance sheet. With these resources, we will connect 22,000 circuit-kilometers of transmission lines across borders. We will seamlessly integrate 20 gigawatts of variable renewable energy into a unified regional system. We are going to slash regional power sector emissions by 15 per cent, and in the process, help create 840,000 high-quality jobs across the region.  Whether through the ASEAN Power Grid, South Asian connectivity, or the Caspian Green Energy Corridor linking Central Asia to Europe, PAGI is how we will secure our economies and protect our people.

Mobilising Private Resources

Public resources alone cannot fund this future. Fiscal space is tightening across all governments, debt burdens are mounting, and traditional aid priorities are shifting. The large pools of capital required for this transition exist right now in the private sector. The problem isn’t a lack of global capital; it is a lack of an enabling environment and the absence of real de-risking mechanisms. Investors see prohibitive political and regulatory risks in cross-border infrastructure, so they walk away.

ADB is changing the paradigm. We are increasing our private sector financing four-fold to reach $13 billion annually by 2030. Under PAGI, we will deploy a robust financing and risk architecture. We will use blended finance, first-loss capital, and expanded guarantee instruments to drive the risk premium down and bring private capital alongside public funding. We need our partners and shareholders to increase capital for guarantee instruments and cofinancing aggressively to distribute the scale of this challenge across the entire development ecosystem. 

Ultimately, all these billions of dollars, these thousands of kilometers of transmission lines, and these advanced AI systems are about one thing: people.

They are about the 200 million people who will gain improved, reliable, and clean electricity access for the first time because we chose to build connected pathways.

The original speech can be accessed here