French energy giant EDF is a well-known nuclear-power-generation company, but now it wants to diversify its energy mix by expanding into renewable energy. Antoine Cahuzac, the CEO of EDF Énergies Nouvelles, the company’s renewables division, believes the newly merged GE and Alstom Energy, with its global footprint, will be the perfect partner. “Both GE and Alstom are very important for us,” Cahuzac says. “They have globally recognized technological expertise in turbines … and their equipment is state-of-the-art.”

Cahuzac says the fact that the two companies are known as the crème de la crème among energy-equipment manufacturers is crucial for EDF Énergies Nouvelles. Wind — both onshore and offshore — is the backbone of the EDF division’s business, making up 86 percent of its total installed capacity. The company has nearly 7 gigawatts (GW) of installed wind capacity in Europe, North America and Africa, and a further 1.3 GW under construction.

Renewables will account for more than 50 percent of the increase in the world’s total electricity generation by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency, and Cahuzac expects that working closely with GE can help EDF get a big slice of the pie. “The geographical footprint of GE and Alstom covers a lot of countries that we are looking at,” Cahuzac says.

Top: Workers finishing a Francis hydroturbine. Above: The Haliade can generate 6 megawatts of electricity. Images credit: GE

GE’s acquisition of Alstom’s power and grid assets was its biggest-ever industrial deal. The U.S.-based company expects to add $10 billion in additional revenue as a result of the combined businesses’ global footprint.

Alstom’s power and grid business had a strong presence in regions that are building out energy infrastructure, such as China, Brazil, India and the Middle East. GE and Alstom together installed a whopping 5 GW of wind power in 2014 alone.

That global reach and scale will be a boon to EDF, too. The company owns a solar farm in Chile’s Atacama Desert, for example, and is setting up a wind farm in Brazil, where the EDF executive sees excellent potential. GE Renewable Energy CEO Jerome Precesse has said that GE will be able to execute projects everywhere in the world.

EDF also favors a steady and strong approach. “We aim to produce electricity in countries where there is political stability, a favorable regulatory environment and good growth prospects,” Cahuzac says. GE shares these values, he says.

The relationship between EDF and Alstom is already deep and strong. The two companies won big in France’s offshore wind tender in 2012, carrying off 1.5 GW of capacity. “Alstom’s Haliade 150-6MW offshore wind turbines— which EDF helped develop — will be instrumental in these projects. So this is a very important relationship for EDF,” Cahuzac says.

The rotor of each Haliade turbine is nearly one-and-a-half tim the length of a football field, or 150 meters. All that torque spins GE’s 6-megawatt direct drive permanent magnet generator. The design allowed GE engineers to eliminate the gearbox, reduce the number of moving parts, cut the need for maintenance, and lower the operating cost.

The generator weighs 150 tons and sits 100 meters in the air. It’s split into three separate electrical circuits. Even if two circuits go offline, the turbine can still produce 2 megawatts of electricity on the remaining circuit.

The technology will power America’s first offshore wind turbine off the coast of Block Island, R.I. In November, EDF and Alstom’s former offshore wind business are joining forces again to bid in Morocco’s huge onshore wind tender, which will offer up to 850 MW of capacity.

Elsewhere, GE is helping EDF to build France’s first subsea tidal power plant, supplying the project with special transformers developed by GE.

GE says the Alstom deal gives it one of the broadest and deepest renewables offerings in the industry, allows it to improve power plant designs and provides it with a broader grid portfolio with the footprint and scale to compete globally. The company will also gain muscle in project expertise.

There is more good news for EDF. The global headquarters for GE Renewable Energy will be in France, meaning that as EDF plans to expand its renewables portfolio the perfect partner will be just down the road.

GE Aviation, one of GE’s largest and most profitable units, generated $24 billion in revenues in 2014. Talking to investors this week just before the Dubai Air Show, David Joyce, its chief executive, said the powerful mix of GE’s technological breakthroughs and the overall growth in airline traffic is keeping him bullish about GE Aviation’s outlook.

Joyce said that one of the key factors powering GE Aviation’s growth was the GE Store– the way that GE shares technology and knowledge between businesses. He said the GE Store was creating a network effect that allowed GE engineers to borrow technology from colleagues elsewhere, move fast, and leapfrog competition.

GE Aviation, in fact, owes its very existence to the GE Store. The company’s first product some 80 years ago was an aircraft turbo supercharger developed by a gas turbine engineer employed by GE’s power generation business.

But Joyce’s unit doesn’t just take from the GE store. It also gives back. Take a look at out examples. (GE Reports will be at the Dubai Air Show next week. Subscribe our newsletter to receive more coverage.)

Taking from the Store:

GEnx – In 2001, there was a downturn in the aviation industry following 9/11 and the dot.com market shakeout. But instead of slashing R&D spending, GE invested in the GEnx, a brand new engine for the Dreamliner and the latest Boeing 747 aircraft, the 747-8.  Drawing on its deep reservoir of materials science, the engine went into production in 2010, and the company shipped engine No. 1,000 this month. Overall, airlines from around the globe have ordered 1,600 GEnx engines to date.

Building up Global Operations– Experts project air traffic in China to grow 7.5 percent annually over the next 20 years. As a result, jet engine makers will deliver more than a third of all new jet engines in the Asia-Pacific region over the next two decades. GE projects that its engine fleet size in the region will triple by 2031. GE Aviation has been taking advantage of the inroads made by other GE businesses that have been local mainstays, such as GE Healthcare. Joyce’s units is also benefiting from access to other shared resources in China, such as the Shanghai Technology Center, which runs innovation programs with Chinese customers.

CMCs from Power & Water – GE Power & Water and GE Global Research have been experimenting with a GE-developed super material called ceramic matrix composites (CMCs). After a successful run inside a 2-megawatt gas turbine, GE Aviation decided to test parts made from CMCs inside jet engines. Today, CMCs are one of the key technologies inside the LEAP next-generation jet engine developed by CFM International, a joint company between GE and France’s Safran (Snecma). Even though the engine won’t enter service until next year, it’s already the best selling jet engine in GE’s history. CFM has have received more that 7,000 orders and commitments for the LEAP valued at more than $125 billion.

Giving Back:

Additive manufacturing – GE Aviation was the first business to experiment with 3D printing and successfully produced the first commercially viable 3D-printed GE part: a component for the LEAP’s fuel nozzle. Now other GE businesses such as GE Healthcare, GE Oil & Gas and GE Power & Water are all experimenting with the technology and looking for ways to incorporate GE Aviation’s insights in its designs.

Services– Servicing jet engines is a fundamental part of GE Aviation’s business model. Its comprehensive service agreements (CSAs) – they are really long-term service contracts – are outcome-oriented to make sure airlines have the resources they need to keep their planes running. In return, these contracts provide predictable long-term and high-margin revenues to Joyce’s business. Other GE businesses are now using the same strategy to create multi-decade long relationships with their customers.

Business support in tough cycles – Now that Aviation is in a bullish cycle, profits earned from jet engines can be used to support businesses powering through harder times. For example, earnings from GE Aviation have made possible GE Oil & Gas’ purchase of the subsea equipment and services company Advantec, as well as other acquisitions. GE says that it is this diversity that creates balance sheet stability and constancy in investment.

Block Island is a teardrop-shaped piece of land some 13 miles off the coast of Rhode Island, U.S. It’s best known for its beaches, wind-swept bluffs and summer vacation homes. But a new attraction is quickly rising three miles off its southeastern shore.

There, in the choppy Atlantic surf, a company called Deepwater Wind started building what will be America’s first offshore wind farm. The farm will have five wind turbines, each rising to twice the height of the Statue of Liberty. When completed in late 2016, they will generate a combined 30 megawatts of electricity — enough to supply 17,000 homes — and turn Block Island into the most powerful coastal enclave in the northeast (with apologies to the Hamptons).

But there’s more to the project. It is also the physical example of GE’s future following its acquisition of Alstom’s power and grid business, which closed earlier this week.

Top: The massive Haliade turbine has a rotor diameter of 150 meters. It can generate 6 megawatts. Image credit: GE Above: Deepwater Wind has already started building America’s first offshore wind farm. Image credit: Deepwater Wind

The Block Island farm brings together Alstom’s massive Haliade turbines, whose blade tips will tower 600 feet above the water, and GE’s innovative gearless permanent magnet generators that can produce 6 megawatts of power. The combination has the potential to transform the renewables business both in the U.S. and abroad.

Until now, Europe has been the hub of wind innovation, says Bryan Martin, head of U.S. private equity at the financial firm D.E. Shaw. The company is financing the $290 million Deepwater farm, and Martin believes that bringing Alstom’s wind turbines and GE’s power generation technology under one roof will change the wind industry’s competitive landscape. “We’re very excited about GE’s acquisition of Alstom’s power businesses,” Martin says.“GE and Alstom getting together creates the first real competitor to Siemens” for offshore wind farms in Europe, Martin says.

The new farm will rise 3 miles off the coast of Block Island. Image credit: Deepwater Wind

The rotor of each Haliade turbine is nearly one-and-a-half times the length of a football field, or 150 meters. All that torque spins GE’s 6-megawatt direct drive permanent magnet generator. The design allowed GE engineers to eliminate the gearbox, reduce the number of moving parts, cut the need for maintenance, and lower the operating cost.

The generator weighs 150 tons and sits 100 meters in the air. It’s split into three separate electrical circuits. Even if two circuits go offline, the turbine can still produce 2 megawatts of electricity on the remaining circuit. Low maintenance and redundancy are hugely important, especially for offshore installations, where treacherous waters and high wind can delay a repair trip for days or weeks.

Jeffrey Grybowski, chief executive of Deepwater, says the farm will power all of Block Island, which currently relies on expensive diesel fuel. The farm will also lower carbon emissions by an estimated 40,000 tons annually — the equivalent of taking more than 150,000 cars off the road. It could also help cut electricity bills for Block Island residents by up to 40 percent. “Offshore wind can power much of the U.S. East Coast, not least in the Northeast, where the wind is strong and we need energy,” Grybowski says. “And we can employ lots of people doing it.”

Say hello to Haliade. The machine is now part of GE’s offshore wind portfolio. Image credit: GE

The Block Island farm will be the first offshore wind farm in the U.S. But the potential for U.S. offshore wind energy is massive — over 4,000 gigawatts (GW), which amounts to more than four times the nation’s annual electricity production, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan has also increased interest in onshore and offshore wind energy, presenting a new opportunity for industry.

So far, a total of 47,000 onshore turbines have been installed in the U.S. wind market, where GE is a major player. The Alstom power and grid acquisition now gives it a stronger offshore offering and also one of the broadest and deepest renewables portfolios in the industry. The combined businesses will also have expanded project expertise and financing for power projects.

“Today offshore wind is a small market with big potential, and the Block Island project sits at the leading edge of innovation,” says Anders Soe Jensen, CEO of GE’s offshore wind unit. “We’re proud that GE will again be making energy history with the first American offshore wind farm.”

America is at a crossroads in the world economy. If we don’t take the lead in writing the economic rules of the road through trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), other countries will.

The United States economy continues to gain strength and create new jobs and opportunities for the American middle class, while acting as a driver of the global economy.

This is an extraordinary achievement. Just seven years ago, the American economy was devastated by the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Countless families lost everything, and American companies were driven out of business left and right. The next several years were extremely difficult, but the resilience of the American people, aided by proactive economic policymaking, won through and brought recovery.

Made-in-America exports have been a major part of the story, contributing a full third of our economic growth from mid-2009 to 2014 as we fought our way back. In fact, we’re in the midst of the longest streak of consistent monthly job creation in United States history, with more than 13 million private sector jobs created since March of 2010. The number of new businesses and new factories has been climbing again, too — a reversal of sharp declines during the crisis.

But there is much more that should be done to expand economic opportunity for all Americans.

Selling American exports overseas is one of the most powerful ways to do that, which is why President Obama has put a new, 21^st century trade policy at the core of his Middle Class Economics strategy.

And when it comes to increasing American exports, the United States is on the cusp of a monumental bipartisan achievement for American workers and businesses: the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. TPP is a groundbreaking new trade agreement between the U.S. and 11 other countries in the Asia-Pacific region which will open countless doors of economic opportunity for Made-in-America exports — supporting high-paying jobs across our country and securing the United States a competitive edge in a critical region of the world.

For the last five straight years, as the Obama Administration has worked to boost exports, American workers, farmers and businesses have broken all previous U.S. export records. Last year, these exports supported 11.7 million American jobs — jobs that pay up to 18 percent more on average than jobs that aren’t related to exports. And nearly 97 percent of the U.S. companies that sell those exports are small and medium-sized businesses, an engine of job creation.

Our government must show economic leadership in the world by acting to help American exporters keep breaking those records and supporting the high-quality jobs we need. We must also attract more investment and the jobs that come with it to the United States. That’s where TPP comes into play.

Thanks to a hard-won breakthrough at the TPP negotiating table last month, yesterday we released the full, final text of the agreement for review by the public, stakeholders, and Members of Congress. And it’s very important for our country’s economy and our values that we seize this opportunity to get trade done right.

The global economy is evolving rapidly, and our future prosperity will largely hinge on American trade negotiators gaining new access to international markets, as well as shaping the rules of trade in a way that builds on America’s competitive strengths.

Globalization has brought the world closer together, but the economic rules of the road are still being written — and our rivals, like China, are not just trying to get better access than the United States to growing markets, but to beat us in writing those rules of the road. China’s version of these rules won’t reflect our economic interests — and they certainly won’t reflect our values, such as strong requirements to protect workers’ rights, intellectual property, a free and open internet, and the environment.

This proves there is an urgent need for the United States to show engaged leadership and to bring home new trade agreements like the TPP that invigorate our economy.

Underscoring that urgency is a simple fact: the U.S. economy is more open to international competition than most other countries. For example, the average applied American tariff, which is a tax imposed on imports to the United States, is only 1.4 percent. The average world tariff, however, is over twice that high. And in some TPP countries, American-manufactured goods can face tariffs of up to 100 percent, while American agriculture exports can be hit with tariffs as high at 700 percent.

To level the playing field, bold steps to bring down those high foreign taxes on American-made products are a must.

TPP does this, and much more. First, the agreement cuts over 18,000 tariffs on Made-in-America exports – bringing most of them to zero – while delivering first-of-their kind benefits to help small businesses export.

On top of that, the TPP establishes unprecedented rules that promote internet-based commerce and protect digital freedom in the global marketplace.

TPP will also help attract investment to the United States. When international companies are thinking about where to build their next factory, they know that here in America we already have a skilled workforce, affordable access to energy, a strong rule of law and a huge market. Think about what happens when, in addition to those strengths, they’ll be able to export to all 11 other TPP countries duty-free.

Moreover, the TPP will cause the largest expansion of fully enforceable labor rights in history, which will elevate standards of living for workers in developing countries while enabling American workers to compete on a more level playing field.

The United States stands at a crossroads in the global economy where, as more developing countries realize their potential and come into their own, more American jobs depend on selling overseas what we make, grow and do at home. In 15 years, there are projected to be to over 3 billion middle class consumers in Asia. Those consumers will want to buy American exports. Cutting-edge trade agreements, like the TPP, are how we reach them.

We have the best innovators, the hardest workers and the will to win. We owe it to ourselves, and to the next generation, to shape globalization to our advantage and level the economic playing field for our people. That’s what the TPP will accomplish.

(Top image: Ambassador Froman tours Concord Supply Company, a San Antonio small business that manufactures and exports industrial materials. Courtesy of David Teran)

Ambassador Michael Froman is the U.S. Trade Representative.

All views expressed are those of the author.

When it comes to electricity, Brazil deals with unique challenges. The fifth largest nation in the world has some of the planet’s longest electricity transmission lines, and its customers face some of the highest electricity bills anywhere. Improving the reliability and efficiency of Brazil’s power stations — and also of the grid, which stretches across vast sections of the country — is a critical matter.

Both Alstom and GE were big players in the country prior to GE’s acquisition of Alstom’s power and grid business. Now GE just might offer Brazil what it needs to energize its power industry.

It can begin with getting power to where it’s needed. Sergio Gomes, regional commercial leader for Latin America at GE’s Grid Solutions business, says a solution called “power compensation” is similar to pouring the perfect pint of beer. “You want as much beer and as little froth as possible in your glass,” he says. “Power compensation gets maximum beer in your glass, allowing the network to transmit as much energy as possible.”

Top: The Itaipu Dam on the Parana River supplies Brazil with a quarter of its power. Above: A power substation near the Itaipu Dam. Image credits: Getty

GE now has the technology to serve the perfect glass. Gomes says that GE brought to the table so-called “series” power compensation systems, which smooth the voltage of transmission networks and allow utilities to transfer power more efficiently. GE has also been investing heavily in software. Its systems are already helping Furnas, one of Latin America’s largest utilities, modernize grid protection, control and communications systems.

GE has now acquired from Alstom “static” compensation products that improve power quality. Because Alstom’s grid business had been a major player in Brazil, the company brings a lot of credibility. For example, it supplied high-voltage direct- and alternating-current equipment to the world’s largest transmission line, known as the Linhão do Madeira. The line runs for 2,580 kilometers (1,420 miles) from the Amazonian state of Rondônia to the state of São Paulo in the southeast. It uses 20,000 kilometers of cable (more than 12,000 miles) — enough to stretch halfway around the Earth at the equator. Some 5,000 steel towers keep it aloft.

“Alstom’s former business was more related to high voltage, whereas GE’s products and services are more related to medium voltage,” Gomes says. “GE will now offer a full portfolio of low- to high-voltage products and services.”

A worker is finishing a giant Francis hydroturbine. Image credit: GE

All this distribution expertise is very much needed in Brazil. The country has been dealing with a growing number of blackouts. With roughly two-thirds of Brazil’s electricity generated by hydroelectric plants, the country’s multiyear drought has only made things worse, causing a spike in electricity bills.

That’s where GE’s new transmission expertise dovetails with Brazil’s power generation profile. A third of Brazil’s power generation equipment was made by Alstom’s energy business, including the iconic Itaipu Dam, which the American Society of Civil Engineers called one of the seven wonders of the modern world. The massive structure on the Paraná River holds a row of 20 giant turbines. In 2008, they generated 94,684 megawatts (MW), the largest amount of power ever from a single dam. Itaipu alone supplies Brazil with a quarter of its power, and Paraguay with 90 percent of its electricity needs.

Hydropower will also be a fitting complement to GE’s growing renewables business in Brazil, now mainly focused on wind. As of 2014, GE had around 1,000 wind turbines installed in the country. The Alstom acquisition added turbines owned by one of its biggest customers, and Brazil’s second-largest renewables company, Renova Energia, which owns Latin America’s largest wind farm, located in the state of Bahia.

Although wind accounts for only 0.9 percent of Brazil’s energy supply, it is the fastest-growing source of power generation in the country. GE is now set to blow that market wide open.

If Peter Tu’s technology takes off, an airplane could know when pilots get distracted in the cockpit and offer suggestions to help them make better decisions. Similarly, doctors could receive important tips on communicating and improving body language when presenting patients with a diagnosis.

These and many other advances are in the works thanks to research into computer vision, which harnesses powerful algorithms and the unflinching eye of cameras to analyze the real world. Computer scientists and engineers are pursuing the goal of giving machines human senses so that they can become aware of their surroundings.

There are few places where this far-out work is closer to commercialization than at GE Global Research’s Computer Vision Lab, where Tu, the Oxford-trained senior principal scientist of the lab, works. Technologies than can enhance our minds and bodies will be also featured in the second episode of Breakthroughtitled More than Human and directed by Paul Giamatti. The six-part TV documentary series, which is focusing on scientific progress and innovation, was developed by GE and National Geographic Channel. It airs on Sunday at 9pm ET on the NatGeo Channel.

“What we’re trying to do is to create computer models of people — their digital twin,” says Peter Tu. Image credit: GE Reports

Over the last few years, the technology has progressed from simple tasks — camera systems designed to make sure health care workers wash their hands before and after touching patients or to monitor a patient’s face for signs that he is experiencing pain — to significantly more nuanced and complex activities.

Tu explains that the lab’s computer-connected cameras are becoming able to identify a range of physical characteristics such as facial expressions, body language, the direction of a person’s gaze and the distance from another person. His team then uses programming to translate those characteristics into a general understanding of how a person or group feels at any particular moment.

Expressions such as a smile or frown are all machine-readable inputs that can be analyzed to reveal the level of trust or hostility between people, a person’s confusion while operating a machine or whether a salesperson is developing rapport with a potential customer.

“What we’re doing now is building inference engines that consume interactions and expressions between people to estimate their emotional state and the broader social context,” Tu says. “What we’re trying to do is to create computer models of people — their digital twin. We ask, ‘What is the internal state of an individual and how do their interactions reveal that state?’”

Tu believes that over time, computer vision systems could be deployed in health care settings to train doctors and retail employees on how to better interact with people, in crowd control, public safety and military applications, and for industrial uses.

Tu says the first commercial deployment will likely come in a year, when a GE system will be ready to measure heightened anxiety levels in crowds populating public spaces.

He says that over the next two or three years, such systems will become available to operate in what he calls the “man with machine” space — constantly watching a pilot or train engineer’s face to detect signs of anger or exhaustion, or monitoring a medical-imaging technician or nuclear plant operator to look for indications of confusion while operating complex systems.

“We’re looking at this ability as a way to detect situations before they turn into a catastrophe, like a pilot or machine operator who’s multitasking and runs the risk of getting into a bad situation,” Tu says. “Not just watching if someone is falling asleep, but if they are overly taxed. If we can recognize that then we can save a lot of lives and prevent a lot of accidents.”

Computer vision systems could also analyze how people interact with each other. These will be able to identify the full suite of human expressions, body language, gaze, audio signals and proximity measurements to understand the dynamics of human interaction in groups. This will open complex group dynamics up to acute dissection through data analysis. How do people interact in teams? How can a doctor quickly develop a rapport with a patient? The system will provide real-time and continuous feedback as to how a person is doing his or her job. and also help with training.

The current iteration of the system in Tu’s lab uses a couple of desktop computers connected to eight pan-tilt-zoom security-type cameras and three specialized cameras that record color images and depth information at the same time. This is enough data for the computer vision algorithms to classify and analyze specific placement and movement of the human body.

Tu says that his work takes humanity down an interesting technological path that has philosophical dimensions about what intelligence and emotions mean. By accurately analyzing a person’s behavior and then use that information to building a digital model that simulates the person’s hidden inner state, a future, more capable computer vision system might be able to predict an action the person hasn’t performed yet. This ability sits at the very core of what a human does during every interaction with another human.

Still, Tu says his team’s work is focused not on creating sci-fi AI robots that can empathize with humans and feel sad, happy or angry. Instead, it’s all in the service of making a world that works better. “If we can give empathy to machines so they can read and understand how behavior gives a window into a person’s emotions, then they can be more aware of users and possibly give those users a better experience,” he says.

The 2015 Dubai Air Show opened for business on Sunday. Cities in the United Arab Emirates like Dubai and Abu Dhabi have become major aviation hubs over the last two decades and carriers based in the Middle East such as Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways have become powerful global players. As a result, the Dubai Air Show, which is held every two years at the Al Makhtoum International Airport located in a desert just outside the city, has become a major industry trade event on par with the Paris and Farnborough airshows.

The 2015 Dubai Air Show opened on Sunday. It’s grown to become one the industry’s most important event, together with Paris and Farnborough in the UK. Image credit Adam Senatori.

The two world’s largest plane makers, Boeing and Airbus, are present here and so is GE Aviation, which is supplying many of their planes with jet engines.

The highlight of the first day was a brand new Emirates Airbus A380 that can hold a combined 615 people in economy and business class. This makes it the world’s largest passenger jet measured by the number of people it can fly.

The GP7200 jet engine made by Engine Alliance uses technology from the GE90, the world’s largest and most powerful engine. Image credit Adam Senatori.

The plane is powered by four GP7200 engines. The engines were developed by Engine Alliance, a joint venture between GE and Pratt & Whitney. At the core of the engine is technology GE originally developed for the GE90, the world’s largest and most powerful jet engine.

GE Reports is at the show. We will bring you daily dispatches here as well as on our Twitter and Periscope channels @ge_reports. On Sunday, we got exclusive access inside the Emirates world’s largest passenger jet as well as Qatar Airways’ brand new A380.

Subscribe to our social media channels. There’s much more in store. In the meantime, enjoy some of the best moments from Day One of the show as captured by pilot and aviation photographer Adam Senatori.

Visitors can right walk up to many of the planes at the Dubai Air Show. We will bring you the experience on our Periscope channel @ge_reports. Image credit Adam Senatori.

A visitor poses next to the front landing gear of the world’s largest passenger plane, a brand new Emirates Airbus A380 that can hold 615 travelers. Image credit Adam Senatori.

Unlike the airshows in Paris and Farnborough, the Dubai show is held at an airport at the edge of a desert. Despite the large number of visitors, the open space sometimes allows visitors to feel like are attending a private show. Image credit Adam Senatori.

The afternoons are typically filled with the roar of flyovers and today was no different. Image credit Adam Senatori.

Airbus brought to Dubai its newest plane, the Airbus A350 XWB, for the first time. GE makes composite trailing edges for the plane’s wings. Image credit Adam Senatori.

A view through a GEnx engine powering a Qatar Airways Dreamliner visiting the show. Adam Senatori took the shot during the “golden hour,” when fine desert dust hovering over the horizon colors the sunlight butter yellow just before sunset. Image credit Adam Senatori.

We must consider the key moral and policy questions around artificial intelligence and cyborg technologies to ensure our innovations don’t destroy us.

How much do we really know about the impact of scientific breakthroughs — on technology or on society? Not enough, says Marcelo Gleiser, the Appleton Professor of Natural Philosophy and a professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College.

As someone who explores the intersection between science and philosophy, Gleiser argues that morality needs to play a stronger role in innovations such as artificial intelligence and cyborg technologies due to the risk they could pose to humanity. He has described an artificial intelligence more creative and powerful than humans as the greatest threat to our species.

While noting that scientific breakthroughs have the potential to bring great harm or great good, Gleiser calls himself an optimist. But says in this interview that “the creation of a transhuman being is clearly ripe for a careful moral analysis.”

When it comes to understanding how to enhance humans through artificial intelligence or embedded technologies, what do you view as the greatest unknowns we have yet to consider?

At the most basic level, if we do indeed enhance our abilities through a combination of artificial intelligence and embedded technologies, we must consider how these changes to the very way we function will affect our psychology. Will a super-strong, super-smart post-human creature have the same morals that we do? Will an enhancement of intelligence change our value system?

At a social level, we must wonder who will have access to these technologies. Most probably, they will initially be costly and accessible to a minority. (Not to mention military forces.) The greatest unknown is how this now divided society will function. Will the different humans cooperate or battle for dominance?

As a philosopher, physicist and astronomer, do you believe morality should play a greater role in scientific discovery?

Yes, especially in topics where the results of research can affect us as individuals and society. The creation of a transhuman being is clearly ripe for a careful moral analysis. Who should be in charge of such research? What moral principles should guide it? Are there changes in our essential humanity that violate universal moral values?

For example, should parents be able to select specific genetic traits for their children? If a chip could be implanted in someone’s brain to enhance its creative output, who should be the recipient? Should such developments be part of military research (which seems unavoidable at present)?

You’ve cited warnings by Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk in suggesting that we need to find ways to ensure that AI doesn’t end up destroying us. Are there any technological you would suggest as a good starting point?

The greatest fear behind AI is loss of control — the machine that we want as an ally becomes a competitor. Given its presumably superior intellectual powers, if such a battle would ensue, we would lose.

We must make sure this situation never occurs. There are technological safeguards that could be implemented to avoid this sort of escalation. An AI is still a computer code that humans have written, so in principle, it is possible to input certain moral values that would ensure that an AI would not rebel against its creator.

Could the AI supersede the code? Possibly, which is why some people are very worried. There could be a shutdown device unknown to the AI that could be activated in case of an emergency. This would need to be outside the networking reach of the AI.

Are there policies that can be put in place that could better ensure that scientific breakthroughs are used appropriately?

From a policy perspective, granting agencies should monitor the goals of the funding to make sure the intentions are constructive and that safeguards are implemented from the start. Governments should work in partnership with scientists and philosophers to maintain transparency and to implement humane operating procedures.

Progress in the control of new technological output should come not just at the national, but at the international level. Global treaties should ensure that cutting-edge research involving AI and transhuman technologies are implemented according to basic moral rules to protect the social order.

There is urgency in developing these rules of conduct. Let us not repeat the errors from climate change regulation — we must act before it’s too late.

Are you generally an optimist or pessimist about how humanity uses science?

I’m optimistic. The human drive to kill existed before science was here. It’s not a scientific problem — it’s a moral problem embedded in a species that evolved within a hostile environment and that is still unable to look beyond its origins. Humans will continue to use science to kill and to heal.

But I detect the emergence of a new mindset, one that seeks a higher moral ground. This mindset is a byproduct of a new global consciousness, a consequence of increasing knowledge of our cosmic position as molecular machines living in a rare planet that are capable of self-awareness. Science not only creates new machines and technologies, but also new worldviews. It’s time we moved one from our ancient tribal divides.

(Top image: Courtesy of Thinkstock)

Marcelo Gleiser is the Appleton Professor of Natural Philosophy and a professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College. His latest book is “The Island of Knowledge.”

All views expressed are those of the author.

A recent five-year transportation study found that more than half of the trains running on India’s vast rail network didn’t leave on time. What’s holding them back? A lack of locomotives.

Not surprisingly, late departures lead to frustration for millions of travellers as well as businesses, which rely on trains to ship their goods.

But a multibillion-dollar Letter of Award to GE by the Ministry of Railways could help unclog this bottleneck and significantly boost the Indian rail network’s on-time record.

Under the supply and maintenance contract, valued at $2.6 billion, GE will develop and supply 1,000 fuel-efficient Evolution Series locomotives to Indian Railways over the next 11 years. Included in the agreement is a $200 million GE investment to manufacture the diesel locomotives in the state of Bihar’s Marhowra district. The agreement is the largest deal in GE’s century-long involvement in India.

GE’s latest Evolution Series locomotive on a test track in Pueblo, Colo. This is the first locomotive to meet the U.S. EPA’s strict Tier 4 emission standards. All images credit: Vincent Laforet

“This project combines GE’s deep infrastructure and manufacturing expertise with India’s growth priorities,” said Jamie Miller, CEO of GE Transportation. “This is an exciting and integral part of our localization strategy in India.”

With the Indian GDP set to grow by about 7 percent annually over the next few years, the country needs modern rail infrastructure to support its growing economy.

Globally, rail is considered the most efficient form of freight transportation. Countries like the U.S. and China rely on rail to meet over 50 percent of their freight transportation needs.

Indian Railways plays a critical role in moving raw materials and finished goods around the country. It currently transports a little more than a third of the total freight transported in India, but with new locomotives powered by GE, that will change.

The factory and the new high-skills jobs could be an economic catalyst for India. They also align with Prime Minister Modi’s “Skill India” agenda. The initiative seeks to boost high-value jobs across multiple domestic industries, including railway.

“This infrastructure project is further evidence of India’s position as a growth engine for Asia,” said GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt. “It is a major advancement and milestone for India and for GE, and a symbol of our commitment and support of the ‘Make in India’ initiative.”

The Letter of Award confirms GE as the selected bidder, following a competitive bidding process. GE and Indian Railways plan to sign a formal contract soon, establishing a joint venture, before breaking ground on the new facility.

Nick Kray is no Picasso, yet his work is on display at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. A decade ago, MoMA’s design collection picked up a composite fan blade from the GE90 jet engine that Kray helped create. The blade’s onyx black sinuous curves are pleasing to look at, but for Kray they are no longer state of the art. “We are now working on the fourth generation of that technology,” Kray says.

Kray works as a consulting engineer for composite design at GE Aviation. In the 1990s, he was part of a GE high-stakes gambit to make the front fan of its largest jet engine from epoxy and carbon fibers.

The blades from the material, called carbon-fiber composite, allowed GE’s aerospace engineers to design the GE90, still the world’s largest and most powerful jet engine. It’s also GE Aviation’s most profitable machine. “Our competitors make jet engine fans from titanium and steel and even some of our own people weren’t initially so hot about using composites,” Kray says. “Nobody had tried this before.”

The engineering is so difficult that to this day, GE is the only company with composite fan blades in service. They work inside the GE90 and the GEnx engines that power many Dreamliners. The material allowed GE engineers to design blades that result in lighter and more efficient engines, allowing airlines to save fuel by shedding precious pounds.

Now Kray and his team are busy building the future. They are working on a fourth generation of the blade for the GE9X, GE’s largest engine yet, designed exclusively for Boeing’s next-generation wide-body jet, the 777X.

GE has already received orders and commitments for 700 GE9x engines valued at $28 billion (list price) from several growing Middle Eastern airlines like Emirates, Qatar and Etihad, as well as Lufthansa, Cathay Pacific and All Nippon Airways. Emirates, Qatar and Etihad, which are present at this year’s Dubai Air Show have ordered 150, 60, and 25 GE9X powered 777X aircraft, respectively. On Monday, Emirates also signed a $16 billion deal with GE Aviation to service its GE9X engines for a dozen years after they enter service.

Top image: The GE90 powers many Boeing 777 jets, including this China Airlines plane. Above: A drawing of GE9X engine. Where the GE90 has 22 fan blades, the GE9X will have just 16 blades made from 4th-generation carbon fiber composite. Image credit: GE Aviation

The blades will feature several new components, Kray says. They will use stiffer carbon fibers so GE can make them longer and thinner. Their trailing edge will be made from a special structural glass fiber composite that can better absorb impact energy. “Carbon fiber is very stiff and not that flexible so that when a bird or something else hits the blade, it creates a shockwave deep inside it,” Kray says. “But the glass composite can deform better and deflect stress on the blade.”

GE will also replace the titanium leading edge that is currently used on GE90 and GEnx blades with steel. “It’s a strong material that allows us to keep the new blade thin in shape to maximize performance,” he says. “If you are an aero guy, thinner is always better. We want the best performance that’s humanly possible.”

GE is testing the new design for the GE9X blades on a scaled-down testing rig at Boeing. Image credit: GE Aviation

Where the GE90 has 22 blades and the GEnx holds 18, the GE9X will have only 16, even though it is the largest of the three.  Besides making the engine lighter, the fewer and thinner blades will also spin faster. “This is great for overall engine performance by matching the entire low pressure fan and turbine system to peak performance,” Kray says. “It’s something the engineers have been asking for.”

The blades still retain their beautiful, sinuous curves, forward sweep, a hook at the top and the belly in the center. Says Kray: It’s an amazing technology.”

When GE designed the GE90 carbon-fiber composite fan blade, it was not starting from scratch. In the 1980s, the company developed the experimental GE36 open rotor engine. It had used carbon fiber composite blades in an unusual hybrid design that combined features from turbofan and turboprop engines.

The GE36 was the first GE engine with composite blades. But they were on the outside. Image credit: GE Aviation

Although the engine demonstrated fuel savings of more than 30 percent compared with similarly sized conventional jet engines, it did not catch on.

Back in the lab, challenges abounded. Typical titanium blades absorb energy and bulge when they hit obstacles such as a bird. But ordinary composites can delaminate and break. “We didn’t know how this new material would respond to stress,” Kray says.

The team ran hundreds of intensive tests simulating bird strikes, rain, snow and hail storms at GE’s jet engine boot camp in Peebles and the Wright Patterson Air Force Base, both in Ohio. “We’d test almost daily and make changes based on what we learned,” Kray says. “The results gave us enormous confidence in the material when we saw how durable it was.”

By 1993, the team had the right material and blade design, but they were far from done. They still had to produce it. GE Aviation teamed up with its European jet engine partner Snecma. The French aerospace company was experienced in making high-tech composites. They formed a joint-venture called CFAN and built a new composites factory in San Marcos, Texas.

Even with the help, making the blade was a hard climb. “The manufacturing of composites remains a manual process,” Kray says. “The material goes through chemical changes and tends to move around. We had to learn how to get it right.”

Each GE90 engine has 22 carbon fiber blades. The GE90-115B is engine is still the world’s largest and most powerful jet engine. Image credit: GE Aviation

The workers inspected every single blade with X-rays, ultrasound, laser and other tools for defects. Initially, only 30 percent of them passed. (The current yield is about 97 percent.)

The Texas workers weren’t learning about composites alone. GE also had to explain the material to regulators, and even to Boeing, who wanted to use it on its 777 long-range jet. The first one was scheduled to leave its plant in 1995. “On top of everything, we were racing against time,” Kray says. “It was a very steep learning curve.”

Ultimately, the wager paid off. Even though the GE90 engine had fan diameter of 128 inches, larger than its predecessors, the composites shaved 400 pounds off the machine. The GE9X’s fan will be 134 inches in diameter.

A rendering of the Boeing 777-9 plane with a GE9X engine. Image credit: GE Reports

The Federal Aviation Administration certified the engine and the composite blades in February 1995. “The engines essentially opened the globe up to incredibly efficient, twin-powered, wide-body planes,” says David Joyce, president and CEO of GE Aviation.

The engine wasn’t shy about showing its power and grace. In December 2002, the GE90-115B version of the engine achieved a Guinness World Record as the most powerful jet engine ever built, generating thrust in excess of 127,000 pounds – more than early space rocket engines. In 2005, a GE90-powered Boeing 777 set another world record, this time for distance traveled non-stop by a commercial jetliner. The plane covered 11,664 nautical miles between Hong Kong and London in 22 hours and 42 minutes. In 2007, the Museum of Modern Art in New York included the curved composite blade in its design collection.

This GE90 got the rocks flying near GE Aviation’s flight test center in Victorville, Calif. GIF credit: GE Aviation

Even after 20 years, GE is still the only jet engine maker with engines using composite blades in service. Kray and other engineers are currently working on a fourth-generation blade for the GE9X engine for the 777’s successor, Boeing 777X. That plane will be the largest and most efficient twin-engine jet in the world. “Next-generation composites will go even further,” Kray says. “We are never going back to metal.”

The seaside Tuscan town of Massa defies the Italian stereotype of vineyards and sun-soaked hilltops. True, Michelangelo got stone for David from nearby marble quarries, but today Massa is best known for massive machines and heavy-duty engineering. It’s the birthplace of several industrial goliaths, including GE’s latest jet engine, the GE9X.

GE is developing the engine exclusively for Boeing’s next-generation wide-body plane, the 777X. The GE9X is designed to be the world’s largest jet and most efficient engine with a fan that’s 134 inches in diameter – just under the interior width of a Boeing 737, which clocks in at 139 inches. It will go into service at the end of the decade.

Top: Qatar Airways is one of the Middle Eastern airlines that ordered GE9X engines for its fleet of Boeing 777X planes. Above: The GE9X will the latest high-bypass turbofan engine from GE. This image shows its predecessor, the GEnx, at the 2015 Dubai Air Show. Image credit: GE Reports

GE has already received orders and commitments for 700 GE9x engines valued at $28 billion (list price) from several growing Middle Eastern airlines like Emirates, Qatar and Etihad, as well as Lufthansa, Cathay Pacific and All Nippon Airways. Emirates, Qatar and Etihad, which are present at this year’s Dubai Air Show have ordered 150, 60, and 25 GE9X powered 777X aircraft, respectively. Today, Emirates also signed a $16 billion deal with GE Aviation to service its GE9X engines for a dozen years after they enter service.

What makes the engine special, however, isn’t just its size. It’s also how it is being built. The Massa plant belongs to GE Oil & Gas, and GE Aviation has used it and its engineers to develop a core part of the engine. GE calls this concept of sharing expertise and knowledge the GE Store.

The GE9X test rig – in blue – at GE Oil & Gas facility in Massa, Italy. Image credit: GE Aviation

On a typical day, workers at the Massa site test and assemble huge modular power plants that can each generate 116 megawatts for oil and gas installations such as the Gorgon subsea gas field off the coast of Australia. “They have a lot of experience with gas turbines,” says Tim Taylor, a senior engineer for mechanical design at GE Aviation, who was involved in the project. “Since each oil and gas project is pretty much unique, they have a lot of experience with variability and can build a new test stand very quickly.”

The GE Aviation team first arrived in Massa in 2013. Since Italy doesn’t have the same travel visa requirements as the U.S., they were able to invite GE experts from Poland, Germany, India and elsewhere to join the project.

White marble peaks and quarries where Michelangelo got marble for David tower over the Massa plant. Image credit: GE Aviation

The team set up their prototype at one of Massa’s outdoor test stands. “Our test director came from GE Oil & Gas and he set up all the instrumentation and monitoring systems,” Taylor says. “His team designed for us the lubrication and cooling systems so we could move really quickly. It was a bespoke rig.”

The team’s goal was to validate a design for the engine’s high-pressure compressor (HPC) – a key component supplying pressurized air to the combustor of the engine and helps determine its efficiency. “We are using new cobalt-based alloys, new coatings and new aerodynamic designs,” Taylor says. “We had to prove them all.”

A detailed image of the test turbine showing a ring with variable vanes that help engineers change the pressure inside the engine. Image credit: GE Aviation

The HPC for the GE9X has 11 stages of airfoils designed to compress the air flowing into the combustor chamber 27 times. “Compared to our previous engines, we have more stages and the rotors have a larger radius,” Taylor says. “This means that when we increase the pressure inside the compressor, the temperature also goes up. You don’t get anything for free in nature and we had to make sure that design would hold up to expectations.”

The prototype that the GE Aviation team took to Italy was built at 75-percent scale. The team only needed validation data at 30 percent of the pressure it would see in service, or 300 pounds per square inch, to confirm the design was going in the right direction. “That’s the same amount of pressure you’d feel at 510 feet under the sea, about the limit for World War II submarines,” Taylor says. “You need a tremendous amount of torque to create that pressure. You can’t do this with an electrical motor.”

A hologram of the GE9X jet engine at the Minds + Machines conference held last week in Dubai. When the engine enters service at the end of the decade, it will be connected to the Industrial Internet. Image credit: GE Reports

But you can do it with a gas turbine and Taylor and the Oil & Gas team used a model built by their colleagues at GE Power & Water. “It’s funny that this turbine actually uses technology we at GE Aviation had originally developed for our jet engines,” says Taylor. “It kind of completes the circle for the GE Store.”

With the test rig in place, Taylor and his team took the HPC for the new jet engine for a spin. They did a lot of harsh things to it, including testing for stall. During normal flow, air moves from an area of high pressure to a low-pressure environment – just like when air escapes from a party balloon. But a compressor moves air in the opposite direction. “It’s against nature and the air doesn’t want to go that way,” Taylor says. “When you push it too hard, the compressor stalls and burps up a fireball that tears up the engine. We had to prove that our design would work within the safe boundaries.”

Taylor and the team ran two series of tests in Massa. After the first one, they decided to open the front part of the compressor and tweak it to improve performance. The second test series, concluded this year, proved they were on the right path. “We got the efficiency we wanted,” Taylor says. “We could run it without stalling.”

The HPC is now back in the U.S. Another team at GE Aviation coupled it with a combustor and will soon begin testing the pair together.

The combustor for the GE9X includes inner and outer liners made from a ceramic matrix composite (CMC) – a light and heat resistant super material whose first application was inside large GE gas turbines. “At GE, you can’t turn a corner without running into a technology built by some other business,” Taylor says. “It’s the magic of the place.”

When finished, the GE9X will deliver a 10 percent improvement in fuel burn, compared to its older brother, the GE90 engine. One variant of that engine, the GE90-115B, holds the title of the most powerful jet engine ever built. In 2002, it generated 127,900 pounds of thrust at a GE’s jet engine test stand in Peebles, Ohio. The thrust of the Redstone rocket that took Alan Shepard to space was just 76,000 pounds.

The GE90 will likely get to keep the record, but the GE9X will me more efficient. Says Taylor: “You can’t stop progress.”

Few places have seen more growth in the airline industry than the Middle East. Carriers that barely registered on the radar three decades ago have grown into powerful global players.

That picture won’t change much in the near future. A new 20-year sales forecast for the Middle East from Boeing estimates that local carriers will need 3,180 new planes valued at $730 billion during the period. Boeing says that fleet expansion will fuel some 70 percent of the growth.

Etihad Airways brought to Dubai’s its flagship A380 jet with engines from Engine Alliance (EA). The engines include core technology from the GE90, the world’s largest and most powerful jet engine. EA calls the engines, called GP7200, the “talking engines” since they can be connected to the Industrial Internet. Image credits: Adam Senatori

Airports like those in Dubai and Abu Dhabi have blossomed into large global hubs connecting the East and the West, and the future order book will reflect this fact. Boeing estimates growth here will be driven equally by long-haul and short-haul planes. That’s a big difference for the rest of the world, where long-haul planes will account for less than a quarter of total future orders.

This is good news for engine makers like GE Aviation. GE is now developing the world’s largest and most efficient jet engine, the GE9X, for Boeing’s next-generation 777X planes. The company also makes the GEnx engine for Boeing 787, the Dreamliner.

Three of the region’s major carriers – Emirates, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airway brought their newest long-haul planes to the Dubai Airshow. Take a look.

The new Etihad A380 includes a single “residence” in the front section of the upper deck. It’s step higher than even the airline’s sumptuous first class apartments. Image credits: Adam Senatori

Emirates flew to Dubai its first A380 in two-class configuration – coach and business – that can hold 615 travelers. That makes it the world’s largest passenger jet. Image credit: Adam Senatori

Qatar Airways brought to Dubai its 25th Dreamliner power by the 49th and 50th GEnx engine GE Aviation delivered to the carrier. The GEnx has been in production just five years but GE already shipped the 1,000th engine to Boeing last month. Image credit: GE Reports

Scientists at GE Global Research (GRC) are working with the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a super efficient desalination machine that fits in the palm of the hand.

This innovative solution involves the shrinking of a steam turbine originally designed to generate electricity. It’s also the perfect example of what GE calls the GE Store, the idea that sharing ideas across businesses can quickly lead to breakthroughs.

If successful, the system could reduce the cost of water desalination by as much as 20 percent. That would begin to break down the cost barrier that has prevented more desalination systems from being built.

Large gas turbines can be as long as a building. Image credit: GE Reports

The mini desalination system combines 3D printing with GE’s deep reservoir of knowledge of turbo-machinery and fluid dynamics. GE scientists Doug Hofer and Vitali Lissianski used them to shrink a power generation steam turbine that would normally barely fit inside a school gym.

Not too long ago, Lissianski, a chemical engineer in the Energy Systems Lab at GE Global Research, was chatting with his lab manager about new ideas for water desalination. This type of “small talk” happens thousand times a day at the GRC.

Their lab tackles a lot of technical challenges coming from GE’s industrial businesses including Power and Water, Oil and Gas, Aviation and Transportation, and they quickly hit on a possible solution.

It led them to Hofer. As a senior principal engineer for aero systems at GRC and a steam turbine specialist, he was part of another team of GE researchers working on a project for Oil and Gas to improve small scale liquefied natural gas (LNG) production. A key part of the project focused on using 3D printing to miniaturize the turbo expander modeled after a GE steam turbine. (A turbo-expander is a machine that expands pressurized gas so that it could be used for work.)

Hofer was the perfect person in charge. He led the steam turbine aero team at Power and Water before coming to GRC eight years ago. Few people in the world have the kind of expertise and knowledge of steam turbine technology that Doug brings. “In traditional steam turbines, steam condenses and turns to water,” he says. “We thought maybe the same principle could be applied to water desalination.”

The only difference, Hofer explained, would be in using flows through the turbine to freeze the brine, or salt water instead of condensing the steam to water as in a steam turbine. Freezing the brine would naturally separate the salt and water by turning salt into a solid and water to ice.

A 3D printed mini-turbine. Image credit: GE Reports

Lissianski and Hofer compared notes and today they are working on a new project with the US Department of Energy to test their new water desalination concept.

The reality today is that 97.5 percent of the world’s potential clean water drinking supply essentially remains untapped, locked in salty oceans and unsuitable for human consumption. This is in the face of growing global water shortage. According to the United Nations, water scarcity impacts 1.2 billion people, or one fifth of the world’s population.

Not even the United States has been spared. California, which has one of the country’s longest coastlines bordering the ocean, has been suffering through a severe water shortage crisis.

Technology inspired by a miniaturized steam turbine could help change all that. And there’s no reason to believe that it can’t. Advances in miniaturization have proven to have great impact time and time again.

For example, the application of Moore’s Law in the semiconductor world has shrunk the size of computer chips to enable mobile phones that pack more computing power than a roomful of mainframe supercomputers that were state-of-the-art just a few decades ago.

In ultrasound, miniaturization technologies have shrunk consoles to the size of a phone screen and can fit neatly into a doctor’s coat pocket. Doctors today can deliver high quality care in regions where access was previously limited or non-existent.

And steam turbines? They already have proven to be one of the key innovations that spread electricity to virtually every home and business. Miniaturized, they just might hold the key to spreading water desalination around the world.

Top image: Doug Hofer, a GE steam turbine specialist, and Vitali Lissianski, a chemical engineer in GE’s Energy Systems Lab, holding the mini-turbine in front of an actual size power generation steam turbine. Image credit: GE Reports

GE Aviation’s latest technology center sits tucked away from the hustle and bustle of Dubai International Airport, inside the Dubai Airport Free Zone and just steps away from the executive jet terminal, a location handy for easy access. From the outside, the place looks like just another glass-and-concrete office tower that sprouted in this desert metropolis over the last decade. But step inside its spaceship-like lobby, with walls inlaid with varnished white panels and flat-screen displays illuminated by chameleonic LEDs, and you’ll feel transported into the future.

Just don’t mention that to the center’s director, Samer Aljabari. For him, the place — officially called the GE Middle East Aviation Technology Center — is rooted squarely in the present. The center employs scores of software engineers writing code that can funnel terabytes of data coming off airplanes and jet engines into the cloud, analyze it and deliver meaningful insights that can help airlines save money on everything from fuel to maintenance. “This is the promise of the Industrial Internet,” Aljabari says. “Many people still think it’s some fancy concept, but it’s already here, it’s real, it’s happening.”

GE has already started connecting jet engines to the Industrial Internet. Image credit: Adam Senatori

One of the reasons GE built the center here was to make some of its largest and fastest-growing regional customers familiar with the software co-creation concept. Over the last two decades, the region has transformed into a major aviation hub connecting the West with China, India, Vietnam and other booming nations in the East. Today, it’s hard to look at the sky above downtown Dubai and not see an Emirates plane or visit nearby Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, without passing a facility that belongs to Etihad Airways, the national carrier. The Dubai Airshow, taking place this week, has quickly grown into the industry’s major event, joining mainstays in Paris and London.

The technology center is set up in such a way that visitors can easily grasp how the Industrial Internet works. Last week, during GE’s Minds + Machines conference in Dubai, Aljabari led a group of visitors including Bill Ruh, chief executive of GE Digital, into a white-and-blue room at the heart of the center. It’s meant to represent the data cloud.

All kinds of industrial assets generate data that can be analyzed. GE’s Predix software works with jet engines as well as power plants, locomotives and other industrial assets. Image credit: Adam Senatori

There, on banks of TV screens, he explained how aircraft gather and transfer data — both in flight via satellite and after they land. He also talked about the types of data his systems use — everything from heat and vibrations happening inside engines to weather and airport congestion information — and how GE can glean insights from the information.

The magic that allows the company to do this in the real world takes place in another wing of the center, where software engineers are busy writing software applications that can run on Predix, GE’s software platform for the Industrial Internet. Airlines can use the apps to design bespoke flight paths for each plane, figure out how much fuel they need for each flight to avoid carrying excess weight and schedule maintenance when it’s actually needed.

The new center is the second such GE facility in the Middle East and Turkey. GE software engineers have been writing apps for the aviation industry at the Turkish Technology Center (TTC), located just outside Istanbul, for some time.

The TTC just celebrated its 15th anniversary and over the years, it’s helped GE Aviation develop software and applications to increase efficiency across the aviation ecosystem. Aybike Molbay, director of the center, says that while flying and maintenance used to be a combination of physics and spreadsheet schedules, they have now gone digital. “We used to look at aviation through a narrow lens,” Molbay says. “We are now on a new level where we are developing analytics in which one engine can talk to another engine and to the aircraft and to the entire system to help the airline run more efficiently.”

For instance, software from the center will keep track of hundreds of GE engines for multiple airlines on a daily basis. Since Predix is technology-agnostic, it could be used one day to monitor engines from other manufacturers. “Predix is a software platform just like Uber or Airbnb are platforms,” Ruh said on a recent flight to visit the Istanbul center. “The Uber app can manage any type of car and we are doing the same for industrial machines. We’re already using Predix apps to manage everything from locomotives to wind farms and power plants. From the software standpoint, a jet engine is just another asset. This is what we mean when we talk about GE’s transformation into a digital industrial company.”

“The Uber app can manage any type of car and we are doing the same for industrial machines,” says Bill Ruh, CEO of GE Digital “We’re already using Predix apps to manage everything from locomotives to wind farms and power plants. From the software standpoint, a jet engine is just another asset.”

GE is currently managing and servicing assets valued at $1 trillion. If Ruh and GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt have their way, all of these machines and many more will be connected to the Industrial Internet.

GE engineers in Dubai and Istanbul are now working on apps that can monitor flight details such as the length of the runway and the angle at which the plane took off, the temperature inside the engine, the amount of fuel consumed, the load it carried, whether it flew through a storm and the temperature that day.

Software could soon monitor other aircraft parts, including landing gear. Image credit: Adam Senatori

All of these factors and more have an impact on the time the engine can remain in service. The apps will allow customers to access the information remotely from their computers or handheld devices.

This is similar to changing the oil in your car when it’s actually needed and not every time you drive 3,000 miles. It will save airlines money, make their planes even safer and allow them to better manage their fleets.

The technology center in Istanbul just launched an internal Testing Visualization App that will allow GE crews to remotely monitor engine tests before they are delivered to customers.

But this is just the beginning. Aljabari is already eyeing data from cameras installed inside and outside airports, sensors in conveyor belts for luggage, and ticketing systems as a connected network that could make the airport intelligent. GE recently opened Predix to outside developers, so customers will be able to use it to build their own apps.

The company is now planning to build similar software centers in China, the United States, Europe and Southeast Asia. The GE Middle East Aviation Technology Center will be a blueprint for these facilities. Says Aljabari: “Imagine the unlimited possibilities and the power we can bring to the table.”

After a dozen years of growth, the aviation industry has hit cruise control. But advances in Big Data, 3D printing and biofuels mean innovation will continue in the sector.

The aviation industry has rarely looked so good, and that has Richard Aboulafia concerned. The self-described “Cassandra” of aviation, the vice president of analysis at Teal Group warns that industry players shouldn’t anticipate another dozen years like the ones that just passed — with ever-climbing demand and record-high deliveries.

“I don’t see any reason to disrupt this party — but maybe it’s time to think about just going into cruise control, plateauing out on the market front,” Aboulafia says in an interview ahead of the Dubai Air Show.

Yet while he’s not anticipating a lot of high-profile deals to come out of the biennial event, there’s plenty of innovation happening in the aviation space to get excited about — such as 3D printing and Big Data, he explains:

After about a dozen years of growth in the aviation sector, you’ve predicted a “softening” in new aircraft deliveries. What is your advice to industry players in the current environment?

Cruise at altitude. All of our numbers have been trending up for quite some time now. I’m sort of the Cassandra of the industry — be careful, you never know what’s coming.

We’re finishing up our 12^th great year. Frankly, I don’t see any reason to disrupt this party — but maybe it’s time to think about just going into cruise control, plateauing out on the market front. The orders are starting to reflect that, macroeconomic drivers are starting to reflect that, global headlines are starting to reflect that.

What are you expecting to come out of the Dubai Air Show?

The sound of nothing. On the civil side, aside from China, the BRIC countries have simply stopped taking and ordering jets. It’s probably going to be the first Middle East air show in a while where you didn’t have large, high-profile orders.

So the message is: We’re doing great with what we’ve got, and we’re happy with our fleet plans for the foreseeable future. We’re cruising at altitude.

On the production side, you’ve noted how additive manufacturing is being increasingly deployed to reduce the scrap rate. We’ve seen the 3D-printed jet engine— are we heading toward a 3D-printed plane?  

3D printing is definitely playing a role, though I’m not sure it’s about to take over. I think you’ll see it first in spare parts, since additive manufacturing is particularly good when you don’t have lengthy production runs.

Could you get to a point where small, complex objects are routinely printed using 3D? Absolutely, but there’s a lot we don’t know about costs and structural integrity for certain components. It might take a bit of a learning curve.

Big Data and the Industrial Internet are playing a bigger role in flight. How much will data transform travel in the coming decades?

Big Data is having a huge impact. Whether its networking, route networks or inventory management or even production itself, it’s introducing occupational efficiencies at a faster pace — but it’s still incremental.

Big Data helps you optimize. But unless you have a next-generation air traffic system that lets you do the most efficient thing without regard to some kind of clunky ground-based appliance, it doesn’t do much good.

A more robust system would be less prone to breaking down. But just as importantly, you just have all kinds of efficiency improvements in the route network — more direct flights, less distance between flights, the ability to fly in straighter lines. You can knock 5 percent or 10 percent out of the system just by implementing this globally.

I can’t imagine it will take much longer than another 10 or 15 years until we implement this around the world. If you couple it all together — Big Data, better air traffic management, and efficient, long-range aircraft that can go anywhere they want. That combination is perfect for creating an international air travel network that allows people to go where they want to go, when they want.

How will the aviation become a more sustainable industry?

We are shockingly good at self-policing. In every other hydrocarbon-burning industry on the planet — cars, motorcycles, trucking — there’s a very high level of tolerance for inefficiency.

We have a wonderful combination of noise reduction, fuel-efficiency improvements and emissions reductions — that are only implemented because it helps the bottom line of the airline industry. We cultivate endless crops of new technology every year — materials, processes, manufacturing changes — all because it helps people survive and stimulate the market.

There is certainly government regulation, but frankly that’s less relevant than airlines being very good citizens for selfish reasons. And if we tell our story, we run less of a risk of having taxes, feeds and other burdens imposed — or just getting a bad rap for being bad citizens. We are the best citizens of all the hydrocarbon-burning industries.

(Top image: Courtesy of Dubai Air Show)

Richard Aboulafia is Vice President, Analysis at Teal Group. 

All views expressed are those of the author.

In 2011, a group of students at Aalto University in Helsinki grew frustrated that startups in the Finnish capital were having a hard time finding each other. “There was no ecosystem for them and for the people who wanted to work for them,” says Riku Mäkelä, who studies business and engineering at Aalto. “But when they started talking to young entrepreneurs, they realized that this was a Europe-wide problem. They decided to do something about it.”

That thing was Slush, an annual conference where startups can pitch ideas to venture funds and scout for employees. Makela, who now heads the nonprofit that runs the event, says the founders decided to call it Slush to make it stand out. “There are many other conferences that draw visitors because they’re held in warm locations with beaches and palm trees,” he says. “But nobody comes to Helsinki in November when it’s dark, cold and slushy. Our whole point was not to play pretty, but focus on content.”

Thousands of startups, venture capitalists, journalists and visitors have packed Slush, held at Helsinki’s cavernous convention center, today. Image credit: GE Reports

They certainly succeeded. Today, with local offshoots in Tokyo and Beijing, Slush is now one of the world’s largest gathering of tech startups, investors and journalists. This year the sold-out event, which started in Helsinki on Wednesday, will draw more than 1,700 companies. Most of them are technology hatchlings, but giants like GE, Google, Samsung and Nokia are here too. They will be joined by  250 venture capital firms, journalists from publications including Forbes, The Economist, and TechCrunch, as well as droves of visitors.

Looking for startups in Helsinki may seem odd, but consider the nation’s tech record. With just 5.4 million people, Finland gave birth to companies ranging from giant Nokia to Rovio Entertainment, which hatched Angry Birds.

Companies at Slush 2015 will also include startups from the Health Innovation Village, a two-year “digital health ecosystem hub” that is quickly taking over an entire floor at GE Healthcare’s Finnish headquarters, located in Helsinki’s “Silicon Vallila” district.

There are currently 26 companies with founders from all over Europe inside the village. They are developing everything from non-invasive brain stimulation devices for treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders like depression (Sooma Oy) to Big Data systems that monitor environmental factors in the office like acoustics and air quality and help customers design the ideal workspace (720 degrees). There’s even an artisanal coffee house in the basement called Warrior Coffee staffed by tattooed baristas serving perfect espressos and piping Nirvana and Joy Division into the seating area.

GE’s Slush booth is the home of several Health Innovation Village startups focusing of software and data analysis in healthcare and other industries. Image credit: GE Reports

TheHealth Innovation Village has also just partnered with StartUp Health, the world’s largest digital health hub based in the U.S.. StartUp Health will establish its first base outside of the U.S. in Helsinki — sharing a floor inside the GE Healthcare building with the village — and host regular programming and community events for entrepreneurs, innovators and people working to transform health care. “We are superexcited to add StartUp Health into our Health Innovation Village open innovation platform,” says GE’s Mikko Kauppinen. “It will empower the entrepreneurs and innovators to transform health care and build a bridge to global markets and investors.”

GE, Google, Samsung and Finland’s Nokia are present at Slush. Startups get to pitch ideas and demo their products. Image credit: GE Reports

This year GE is also one of the sponsors of the conference. “We need large players that can share with young entrepreneurs expertise they never had and also help them find financing,” Mäkelä says. “GE has been a great match.”

GE Ventures, a unit that has invested in everything from precision medicine and non-invasive brain technology to robotics and drone software, is coming to Slush this year as well, and so is geniusLink, another GE outfit, that which helps customers and internal teams with open and collaborative innovation.

Startups and entrepreneurs stay busy at Slush. Image credit: GE Reports

For GE, working with innovators is a two-way street. They get access to experience and GE gets access to new ideas. One Health Innovation Village resident, the startup Injeq, is developing a needle guidance system that could improve the precision and safety of liver biopsies. Injeq’s guidance system uses ultrasound rather than computed tomography (CT), which emits radiation. One day it could work with GE ultrasound machines. Injeq will soon start a clinical study at the Helsinki University Hospital, one of the leading research hospitals in Northern Europe, which has helped GE Healthcare co-develop a number of products.

“The collaboration started with GE as we talked about [how] our technology applied in rheumatological injections and spinal anesthesia, and they came up with this clinical need their customers are facing,” says Kai Kronström, CEO of Injeq.

Despite the business promise of Slush, it’s set up as a not-for-profit. In early October, Mäkelä hosted a party in a downtown Helsinki club for the 1,500 volunteers — mostly students — who will be working the show for free. “We are one big community here,” Mäkelä says. “We are helping each other to build something big.”

GE Reports will be present at Slush for the first time this year. Follow us on Twitter and Periscope @ge_reports for more coverage.

There is no region in the world with a higher concentration of large GE jet engines than the Middle East.

The Dubai-based airline Emirates alone has 131 GE90-powered 777s in service and their engines just completed 1 million cycles, or trips – each cycle includes one takeoff and one landing. That number is now set to grow faster since Emirates has 44 more 777s with the same engine on order.

GE’s latest engine – the GE9X – will also power the carrier’s 150 new next-generation 777X jets it has on order. All of these engines are worth many billions of dollars, and GE Aviation just signed a $16 billion deal with Emirates to service its forthcoming GE9X engines for a dozen years after they enter service.

Top: It’s not all business. Afternoons are often filled with aerobatics and flyovers. Above: These massive GP7200 engines from Engine Alliance have technology from the GE90, the world’s largest and most powerful jet engine, inside. Image credit: Adam Senatori

Aside from those Goliaths, GE has a lot more power plants on the jets parked at Dubai International Airport. There’s the GEnx for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and 747-8 aircraft and all the GE tech inside the Engine Alliance GP7200, which power the Airbus A380 double-deckers.

Engine Alliance currently powers 67  Emirates A380s and is slated to supply engines for 23 more.

Emirates brought its latest Airbus A380, with a capacity of 615 passengers, to Dubai. That makes it the world’s largest passenger jet. Its four GP7200 engines have GE technology inside. Image credit: Adam Senatori

The situation is similar for other local airlines like Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways and even budget carriers like Flydubai. Not surprisingly their planes and engines dominates the Dubai airshow. Take a look.

People lined up in 90-degree heat to see Etihad’s flagship Airbus A380. The plane has first-class “apartments” on the upper deck as well as a single “residence.” Image credit: Adam Senatori

The “residence,” located on the upper deck near the nose of the Etihad jet, holds a bed. Image credit: Adam Senatori

Etihad, based in Abu Dhabi, is the national airline of the United Arab Emirates. Image credit: Adam Senatori

Government officials toured Qatar Airways’ A380 on Monday. Image credit: Adam Senatori

Visitors sought refuge from the desert heat in the shade underneath the huge plane. Image credit: Adam Senatori

The pace of innovation may be accelerating, but our ability to adapt to the latest technologies remains undeterred.

Technology is not an obstacle to humanity. Humans evolve — behaviorally, physically, morally, biologically.

Over many millennia, humans migrated around the globe adapting to changing climates, predators, foods, pathogens, rival tribes and countless obstacles and opportunities. To be human is to adapt.

Life today bears little resemblance to that of just a couple of centuries ago when life was short, often violent, harsh during long winters, treacherous for pregnant mothers, often light on calories, subject to unexpected plagues, filled with little leisure activity, and miserable in so many ways that most people today do not envy those times.

Thankfully, technology evolves, too. Innovative technologies, created by humans to benefit themselves, are among the principal drivers of changes in the human condition. The Darwinian drive to survive and reproduce has expressed itself in unexpected ways through the human mind, which is always seeking to create, invent, develop, improve and advance. We all know the story: stone tools led to writing, aqueducts, printing, farm implements, heating, electricity, medicines, computers, satellites, gene therapy and more. Today, surviving to adulthood and reproducing occurs with greater certainty than ever, thanks to manmade technologies — antibiotics, nutritious and abundant foods, fertility treatments, C-sections. Manmade technologies have changed our lives, generally for the better.

Consider biotechnology, a young discipline that is beginning to transform disease treatments. When Richard Nixon declared the “War on Cancer” in 1971, little did we realize that it would require the invention of whole new fields before the prospect of long-term cures could seem within reach. With the development of genetic engineering, molecular imaging, genomics, biomarkers, biomanufacturing and myriad other technologies, we are now seeing major advances. Cancer therapies are now more targeted, less toxic, and able to prolong life. In the case of rare inborn genetic mutations, personalized gene therapy is now curing children in the EU and China. After a 30-year plateau in FDA drug approvals, 2014 witnessed a jump in new drugs.

The human mind is finally able to grasp the complexities of our own biology and design solutions. Optimism reigns for treating human diseases.

Lest we get over exuberant, recall that humans have a penchant for pushing innovations another step further — often seeking enhancements to performance or beauty — once something is relatively safe and affordable. Human growth hormone, Epo, Botox, and Lasik were all borne from medical applications.

Fortunately, while excesses and mistakes can and do occur, humans historically find a way to co-evolve with new technologies — though it can take time, new legal and moral codes and even contentious debates and struggles. Remember, Socrates rued the rise of writing, as he believed that the art of memory would be lost to future generations. Some towns initially refused electric lighting; 19^th century Luddites destroyed early textile machinery; and today many educated people consider Golden Rice to be evil, though it can prevent blindness in children.

The debates we see today about how modern technology harms our children, ourselves, society and our environment are not new. Somehow humans have found ways to adjust and adapt.

So today, what — if anything — is different? Pace and scale. The pace of innovation is accelerating, as Ray Kurzweil and others note. Technologies arrive at an exponential rate because they build cumulatively upon each other, across disciplines. Moreover, with 7 billion people on earth, new technologies can affect nearly everyone in some way, not to mention the entire planet — global warming, constant electronic engagement, living “too long.”

I believe the human spirit and mind can handle the coming waves of technology. The greatest challenges will require multi-generational, multi-cultural solutions. However, what is most uncomfortable for us today is that humans will need to change — our minds, our bodies, our behaviors, our priorities, our wishes for ourselves and our children.

As in the past, thanks to human imagination and perseverance, we will adopt new ways of modifying ourselves and our world for the better. And since being human means being able to adapt, change course and evolve, we will learn to embrace the change we create — in large part because we will ethically and logically steer the course of our own evolution in ways that are fundamentally human.

The interface between technology and the brain will be also explored in the third episode of the Breakthrough documentary series, “Decoding the Brain,” directed by Brett Ratner. The six-part series, developed by GE and the National Geographic Channel, airs Sundays at 9pm ET on the NatGeo Channel.

(Top image: Courtesy of Thinkstock)

Steve Gullans, PhD, is a scientist, author, entrepreneur and investor. The former Harvard professor is co-author of “Evolving Ourselves,” a witty perspective on human evolution today.

All views expressed are those of the author.