Agentic solutions from the UAE’s AI champion

UAE

Magzhan Kenesbai, acting managing director of AIQ, talks to The Energy Year about the role that AI tools are playing in boosting the productivity and sustainability of the energy industry and the company’s pursuit of international collaborations to drive growth. A joint venture between Presight and ADNOC, AIQ is a UAE-based technology company that develops AI-driven tools for the energy industry.

What sets AIQ apart in the global race to develop AI tools?
AIQ aspires to be the leading AI company in the global energy industry. We are backed by one of the leading energy companies in the world, ADNOC, and we’re also backed by one of the top AI companies, Presight, and its majority shareholder, G42.
We are standing on the shoulders of giants who provide us with highly prized access to data and unique capabilities to develop, showcase and deploy our products. Presight is present in 15 countries worldwide, and we have amazing distribution channels. ADNOC provides us with access to more than 80 years of proprietary data and multiple high-quality data sets. We also benefit from having subject matter experts on staff who bring in-the-field experience to help guide the development of our solutions for industrial use.

How do you expect AI will impact processes in the energy sector?
We have taught machines how to analyse data. As AI evolves, neural networks are becoming increasingly sophisticated. What AI does at its core is tap into knowledge centres within organisations and democratise them. Instead of having individual solutions, technologies and platforms, knowledge centres can be unified.
The primary goal of AI is to create value – whether by increasing operational efficiency or by boosting sustainability efforts – and to generate valuable insights that can drastically reduce the time it takes to make decisions from months to days. Our chairman, H.E. Dr Sultan Al Jaber, calls it applied intelligence, which is very reflective of what AI is. Its value for the energy sector and across the economy will drive tremendous growth – unprecedented and truly transformational growth.

How are AIQ’s AI tools contributing to support ADNOC’s operations?
We have 14 products and numerous patents that allow us to deliver globally competitive AI solutions. At ADIPEC 2024, our chairman announced the launch of ENERGYai, which is the first agentic AI solution of its kind in the energy sector. On a 24/7 basis, it provides access to leading PhD-level “AI agents” within any given domain – upstream, midstream, downstream or sustainability.
This collaboration with ADNOC on ENERGYai, together with G42 and Microsoft, will unlock value, particularly with respect to operational efficiency and sustainability improvement, with its ability to shorten processes that can take years and months to days. ENERGYai can be applied along the entire value chain, from the control room to the board room, and we aspire to become the leading AI company in the energy industry and one of the leading agentic AI solution providers.

What role is AI playing in maximising efficiency and sustainability?
Early last year, ADNOC announced it had generated over USD 500 million in value across its operations in 2023 through the deployment of AI, and this is just the beginning. We see the value driven by AI growing year on year, and the deployment of solutions in the field attests to this. We announced integrating SMARTi, our leading computer vision-based health and safety solution, into 86 vessels within the ADNOC fleet. Our AR360 solution, which is an automated assessment and reservoir visualisation tool, has been deployed across certain assets within the ADNOC ecosystem, delivering drastic efficiency gains.
Another product that I’m personally immensely proud of is RoboWell, the first AI-driven autonomous wellhead operator. Can you imagine the efficiency of being able to control wells from a control room? The time savings, the sustainability gains and the health and safety implications are truly transformational.

What are the key challenges to implementing AI tools?
The main challenge to AI implementation in organisations in the energy industry is data. If poor data is ingested, poor results come out. Data is the food for AI, and one of the key challenges in the growth of AI is separating quality data from bad data.
The second-biggest challenge is education. Groundbreaking technologies can face resistance, and one of the main reasons for resistance is that awareness or education about the benefits of the nascent technology may not be very well integrated within societies.
The third is sustainability. How do you obtain continuous energy support for a very power-hungry segment? By 2030, the capacity of data centres is expected to double, and there are numerous reports already that predict there is insufficient energy production or infrastructure to support that growth sustainably. Growth needs to be coupled with a rise in alternative, renewable power generation – we’re seeing the hyperscalers announce massive investments in alternative energy sources. How do you make one of the foundations of AI, which is energy, sustainable? How do you expand it to the degree that it will be able to fuel hypergrowth? These are the questions the industry is working to answer.

How does AIQ plan to grow its business in the next few years?
First and foremost, we aim to tap into the ecosystem provided by Presight, G42 and ADNOC. They are amazing gateways to international expansion. Second, we will pursue international collaborations. We are honoured to have partnerships with the likes of Baker Hughes, Halliburton and SLB, and we are enthusiastic about expanding our client base. In 2023, we signed an MoU with Malaysia’s Petronas to scale AI solutions worldwide, and we recently entered into a strategic collaboration agreement with Ecopetrol, the national oil company of Colombia, to explore the deployment of AIQ’s cutting-edge AI solutions in its operations.
2025 will be a year of growth. Any organisation that does not have a data strategy or an AI strategy is not going to be very competitive going forward. AIQ’s focus is to develop best-in-class product lines and become a premier service provider. When I say premier, I mean it in terms of quality and customer satisfaction. We have been able to obtain some good results with ADNOC, and we believe that we can successfully expand on them internationally.

What are your key priorities for 2025?
Our ambition is threefold. First, we want to establish ourselves as a leader in AI for the energy industry – an objective we are firmly on track to achieve. This includes becoming a pioneer in agentic AI development tailored specifically for energy applications, which will enable us to tackle difficult operational challenges, particularly in the upstream sector.
Second, we want to drive the adoption of sustainable practices through innovative approaches, such as the introduction of smaller AI models. These models are transformative tools, and their potential must be understood across the industry. Third, we want to champion educational initiatives that highlight the benefits of AI for the energy industry, fostering a broader understanding of its value.
Our efforts align closely with the UAE’s vision to become a global hub for AI innovation by 2030. What the UAE has already achieved towards developing a robust AI ecosystem domestically is a testament to the visionary leadership of the country, ADNOC and G42. Their combined foresight and commitment to the adoption and integration of AI have created opportunities for transformative advancements. We are proud to contribute and play a role in shaping the energy industry’s future by leveraging AI’s potential to redefine its landscape.

Read our latest insights on:

• Colombia
• Malaysia
• UAE