Medium voltage converters are a key component of renewable energy systems like photovoltaic and wind, of large-scale energy storage systems like batteries or hydrogen, and of applications like electric vehicle charging, datacenters, large medium voltage drives, hydrogen production and “green steel”. All these high-power applications went into exponential growth in the last decade and will keep growing during the next decades driven by the so-called “electrification”, the trend to replace fossil fuels by electricity based on renewable energy. The drivers of these trends and the role of power electronics will be discussed, furthermore the essence of power electronics research, and future research and business opportunities.