Monthly CURENT Industry Seminar, Thursday, September 3 from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. U.S. Eastern time
Presentation by Dr. Di Shi of New Mexico State University. Dr. Shi will present on the topic, “Toward Foundation Simulators for Power Systems: In-Context Learning of Dynamic Operators.”
Abstract: Fast and accurate dynamic simulation is essential for transient-stability assessment, online security analysis, and contingency evaluation. Conventional time-domain simulation can be computationally intensive, while many machine-learning surrogates learn fixed mappings and may require retraining as operating conditions, disturbances, or system configurations change. This talk presents an adaptive in-context operator-learning framework as a step toward a general-purpose foundation simulator for power-system dynamics. By conditioning on a small set of demonstration trajectories, the model infers disturbance-dependent operators and predicts target responses without online parameter updates or sequential numerical integration. Results on benchmark systems demonstrate accurate prediction, adaptation through context, generalization to unseen fault conditions, and substantial online speedup. The talk will also discuss the path toward scalable simulators across network topologies, disturbance types, and dynamic models.
Biography: Dr. Di Shi is an Associate Professor in the Klipsch School of ECE at New Mexico State University, where he holds the Paul W. and Valerie Klipsch Distinguished Professorship. His research focuses on AI-enabled grid resilience, with an emphasis on translating advances in machine learning, optimization, and control into solutions for real-world utility operations. Before joining NMSU, he founded AInergy, where he commercialized AI-driven energy technologies that are now deployed by 16 utility companies. He previously held leadership and research positions at GEIRI North America, NEC Laboratories America, EPRI, and Arizona State University. Dr. Shi has authored or co-authored more than 190 journal and conference papers, holds 42 patents and patent applications, and has received 11 Best Paper Awards. He is a Fellow of the IET and serves or has served as an editor for IEEE Transactions on Power Systems and four other leading journals.