When resilience becomes a strategy

Hitting a large power station is straightforward: you know where it is. With a network of small, scattered plants across the country, however, it is a different story. This is illustrated by Ukraine, where more than half of the centralised capacity has been damaged or destroyed, compared with 7 per cent of the distributed capacity. This comparison, featured in the latest issue of *World Energy* – Eni’s magazine dedicated to major issues in energy and geopolitics – brings a strategic question to the fore: how to ensure the continuity of supplies and essential services even when external conditions become adverse.

The issue is entitled The Resilience Shift. In the editorial Rita Lofano, editor-in-chief of World Energy and the Agenzia Giornalistica Italia (Agi), points out that, according to the World Economic Forum, 74 per cent of managers regard resilience as a “driver of growth” and no longer merely a risk management tool. For businesses, this shift means rethinking supply chains: it is no longer enough to optimise timescales and costs; it is also necessary to have alternatives in place when a supply is disrupted. In short, moving from ‘just-in-time’ to ‘just-in-case’ is a prerequisite for remaining in the market.

Vulnerabilities under stress
Geopolitical crises highlight just how much global energy balances depend on the security of supply routes and the availability of alternative resources. The conflict in the Middle East and the disruptions to flows through the Strait of Hormuz are a case in point. Keisuke Sadamori, former Director of Energy Markets at the International Energy Agency (IEA), recalls the response on 11 March 2026: member countries agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil from emergency reserves, the largest coordinated intervention of its kind in the Agency’s history. An extraordinary measure that can mitigate the immediate effects of a crisis, but does not replace the need to diversify sources and strengthen security of supply.
 Anne-Sophie Corbeau draws attention to the vulnerability of maritime routes, which are essential for trade in energy and raw materials. Restrictions on shipping through the Panama Canal in 2023 demonstrated how even a single bottleneck can have repercussions on global supply chains. Energy security, therefore, depends not only on the availability of resources, but also on the ability to transport them. The digital front is also vulnerable. The growing digitalisation of energy systems expands the surface area exposed to cyber-attacks and makes network protection an essential component of security.
Moisés Naím, Distinguished Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, observes that strategic infrastructure is increasingly linked to less visible systems: data centres, software, the cloud and artificial intelligence. A well-known example, which also serves as a warning: in 2021, a cyberattack forced the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline, the largest US pipeline for refined petroleum products, halting fuel deliveries across much of the east coast. A cyberattack can have tangible consequences for the availability of goods and services, even without physically destroying any infrastructure.

Dependence that needs to be managed
Vulnerability is not limited to oil and gas. Francesco Gattei, Chief Transition & Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer at Eni, highlights Europe’s dependence on imports of raw materials and strategic products: in many supply chains, the concentration of supplies in just a few countries can become a source of industrial risk.
The case of solar panels, for which China holds a dominant position in global production, is emblematic. The answer does not lie in closing markets, but in diversifying sources, strengthening production capacity and building alternatives: reducing risks without sacrificing interdependence.
Roberto Di Giovan Paolo describes what is known as predictive ‘friend-shoring’: AI algorithms and simulated geopolitical scenarios map out supply chain vulnerabilities in advance and redirect flows before bottlenecks arise. The ability to anticipate a disruption can make the difference between suffering its effects and containing them. For Pascal Lamy, former Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, the way forward is necessarily that of managed interdependence, because resilience is not the opposite of cooperation.
Alessio Sangiorgio and Marco Simoni explore this perspective in the context of public policy, demonstrating how industrial policy is increasingly intertwined with economic and strategic security.

The energy that powers artificial intelligence
This issue of World Energy devotes considerable space to the relationship between energy and digital technology. Fabio Roncarolo, head of Eni’s Data Centres programme, points out that the growth of artificial intelligence poses an increasingly significant challenge in terms of energy: a single cabinet of the latest-generation servers can exceed 100 kW in power, whilst in many parts of Europe securing a new connection to the grid now takes several years, partly due to the need to upgrade the electricity infrastructure and complete the authorisation processes.
Hence the concept of ‘Powered Connected Land’ – areas already equipped with energy and connectivity – exemplified by the Ferrera Erbognone campus in the province of Pavia, developed in partnership with Khazna Data Centres, the first phase of which involves an 80 MW data centre. The availability of adequate energy and infrastructure thus becomes a key factor for digital competitiveness as well.

Artificial intelligence, however, also increases the need for protection. Seungmin Helen Lee points out that whilst it can strengthen defence capabilities, it also provides new tools to attackers. The vulnerability of digital infrastructure also became apparent on a physical level in March 2026, when drone attacks damaged three Amazon Web Services facilities in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
Protecting digital infrastructure therefore requires the integration of physical security, cybersecurity and operational continuity.
Roberto Baldoni, former Director-General of the National Cybersecurity Agency, extends the theme of strategic autonomy to the entire AI supply chain. His conclusion: in a sector characterised by technological dependencies that are difficult to eliminate, the ability to understand the technologies used, govern the conditions of their use and have alternatives at one’s disposal becomes an essential component of sovereignty.
From the diversification of supply chains to the protection of networks, from industrial policy to artificial intelligence infrastructure, *The Resilience Shift* explores the conditions that enable energy and industrial systems to cope with a world more exposed to shocks. Resilience cannot be improvised once a crisis is already underway: it is built through technological, industrial and strategic choices that prepare us to prevent it, absorb its effects and bounce back.

The issue is available at https://www.eni.com/static/it-IT/world-energy-magazine/resilience-shift.html#