AI Enabled Blockchain Smart Contracts: Cyber Resilient Energy Infrastructure and IoT

The commoditization of trust has been the topic of science fiction, futuristic novels and theoretical study for the last century. Advances in blockchain and artificial intelligence technology continue to make science-fiction a reality, automating and replacing the need for 3rd party intermediaries and other trust mechanisms, potentially disrupting many critical industries. Blockchain enabled smart contracts show potential to exchange value without third party trust mechanisms. The combination of artificial intelligence, cryptography, distributed trust algorithms or smart contracts have paved the way to a more efficient and secure way to exchange value, goods and services. This paper explores how blockchain technology could potentiality automate and modernize energy and the internet of things to help evolve energy infrastructure to an increasingly automated, distributed, clean and resilient system. This is timely as the U.S. power grid and the array of things that it connects to is a complex system of systems in which the nation’s economy, national security and livelihood depends on.