The Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has partnered with Amazon Web Services to explore advanced artificial intelligence tools for the nation's electric grid. PNNL grid experts will develop and evaluate these AI systems in collaboration with AWS, testing scenarios in PNNL's Electricity Infrastructure Operating Center with a secure, operations-grade hybrid-cloud Amazon environment. The work addresses challenges for utilities, grid planners, technology developers and government stakeholders, including improving situational awareness, reducing operator burden, strengthening grid resilience and helping the grid adapt to faster and more variable supply and demand situations. Jim Ogle, PNNL's director of electricity infrastructure, said grid control centers will need to evolve significantly with rapidly increasing electricity demands, and applying AI in rigorous, practical and human-centered ways can advance the grid while maintaining reliable, secure and affordable power. The work supports PNNL's Enhanced Visibility & Event Response (EVE@PNNL) capability, launched earlier this spring. PNNL has decades of experience in grid operations, including leading a DOE effort after the largest blackout in U.S. history in 2003 to deploy precise measurement tools. In May 2025, the Lab published a report on incorporating large language models into grid operator work. To address LLM errors known as "hallucinations," researchers are exploring neuro-symbolic AI, which combines the pattern recognition of machine learning.