Intelligent assets are an evolution and continuous development of todays often separated automation, monitoring and communication functionalities and those intelligent assets are often equated with the term digital twin, or edge computing. Hence, it is worth taking a closer look at what is meant by what. An intelligent asset is primary asset coupled with a edge device at a critical point in the grid by linking existing actuators, modern sensors, communication and algorithms into a dynamic system, for which today often only static, worst case considerations are taken into account. In addition to the data generated during design, production and testing, these edge devices contain the historical and actual operating data, evaluated information on utilization, calculated lifetime consumption and operating risk which all together represent the local digital twin. This dynamic view enables more flexibility, new transparency and better decision support regarding overload capability, ageing or remaining technical service life of assets in order to make the best possible use of existing energy infrastructure as well as to optimize the processes of asset management and grid planning. In addition, integrating the increasing number of subsystems into a reduced number of hardened edge devices with defined redundancy, service and operating concepts also increases the availability and resilience of the systems while reducing risks and effort of entire value chains. Further, the availability of communication of dynamic information on the status of equipment enables new and digital processes and will, for example, significantly change the way commissioning and maintenance is carried out. It is important to emphasize that, unlike in other industries, sovereignty over communication and data must always be in the hands of the asset owners and must meet regulatory requirements and highest data security standards. In addition to the undoubtedly necessary expansion of the energy networks, a very high potential for mastering the upcoming challenges lies in the combination of today's often organizationally separate view of the asset management (EAM), communication infra­structure and energy management (EMS).