All Things Good and Powerful

­We’re finally here! The show and the most exciting 5 days of the year for power engineers and the greater power industry. It’s the Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC), once more emanating from the cozy and historical confines of San Antonio.

And given that APEC focuses on the “practical and applied aspects of the power electronics business,” it’s like some kind of wonderful playground for PSD! I’ve been in this industry nearly two decades – about half of that with PSD – and some of my fondest professional (and personal) memories are from this seminal event.

Seeing the latest and greatest in new products and applied power. Networking. And the schmoozing. Oh, the schmoozing.

As we’ve slowly become a more digital world, sometimes the best chance to reconnect with colleagues, friends, and business partners is at the annual pilgrimage for all things good and powerful!

So if you chance upon me or the rest of the PSD crew in the grand halls of the Henry B. González Convention Center, be sure to say hi!

And what better way to kick off the Super Bowl of the power industry with an issue that literally focuses on power supplies? Anything less than that would feel like a letdown.

That said, while our March issue covers many of the usual suspects (GaN & SiC, power MOSFETs, and even relative newcomers like silver adhesive pastes), it and APEC, itself, will deal tangentially with quite possibly the two most important topics of this century – renewable energy and AI.

We all know where the industry is headed, and how the consumer and industrial markets are becoming fully electrified, privy to renewable energy sources like solar, wind, nuclear, and possibly even dark horse candidates like hydrogen fuel cells and advanced biofuels.

In a recent PSDcast, we covered the notion of the “Democratization of Solar,”  while a different episode discussed how dry electrode manufacturing could lower the cost of EVs.

Not to be outdone, AI – my pick for the topic du jour of 2026 (and many years to come – was well-represented in two recent PSDcasts -- AI for Space Applicationsand AI Testing and the U.S. Army.

For APEC attendees, no less than five Industry Sessions – including “The Future of Powering AI,” chaired by faculty from UC Berkeley and Princeton University – and 1 of 2 Debate Sessions will attempt to answer the question, “Should the future rely more on Generative AI for Design or Predictive AI for Optimization?”

And I can’t imagine the majority of exhibitors won’t be throwing their lot in with AI in some way, shape, or form.

Enjoy the March issue, and have fun at APEC!

Best Regards,

Jason Lomberg

North American Editor, PSD