Technology

Companies should be aware of the pitfalls in implementing AI. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

Heiko Claussen, co-chief technology officer, Aspen Technology has some advice for asset-intensive organisations in the Middle East looking to leverage the benefits of industrial AI

The adoption of industrial AI in the Middle East is driven by its immense potential to enhance operational efficiency, reduce costs, and contribute to environmental sustainability. The main challenge is not convincing innovators to adopt this technology, but rather in the implementation processes. The following best practices can help them avoid common pitfalls, resulting in a smooth transition.

1. Prioritising the customer

One of the most critical aspects of industrial AI implementation is understanding that all innovation should ultimately benefit the customer. Instead of developing new AI technologies without a clear outcome in mind, organisations should focus on what matters most to their customers to create solutions that have direct, tangible benefits.

This customer-centric approach means examining customer pain points and then using AI to solve those issues. For instance, in asset-intensive industries, predictive maintenance is a game-changer. AI can predict equipment failures well in advance, reducing costly downtimes and enhancing reliability. By focusing on the customer’s needs, you ensure that your AI initiatives are relevant and impactful.

2. Embracing the innovation funnel

One common mistake innovators make is betting everything on a single, high-risk idea. An innovation funnel allows organisations to evaluate multiple AI ideas at different stages of development. Instead of committing significant resources to a single initiative, you can track the progress of various projects, update risk assessments, and re-evaluate plans as necessary. This helps avoid the "all or nothing" approach, ensuring your company remains agile and can pivot if needed.

The funnel also helps identify when to stop projects that aren’t delivering expected value. Not every idea will be a success, but having a process in place for evaluating them ensures that you make informed decisions.

3. Beware of the "Valley of Death"

A significant challenge in innovation is navigating the "valley of death" - the gap between a research proof of concept and successful commercialisation. Many great ideas fall into this void due to a lack of stakeholder involvement or unclear ownership.

To avoid this, involve all relevant stakeholders from the beginning. This includes technical teams like R&D as well as departments like cybersecurity, product management and leadership. Everyone must agree on priorities, and there should be clear ownership in each stakeholder group.

By ensuring that everyone is on board early, you create a collaborative environment that is more conducive to success.

4. Appoint clear owners for each stage of the process

Another critical best practice is ensuring that each stakeholder group has a clear owner responsible for moving the project forward. Whether it’s technical details, business strategies, or compliance concerns, each part of the AI implementation process requires dedicated leadership.

Ownership is very important here. Organisations need owners who feel responsible not just for their piece of the puzzle but for the entire project. These owners should manage the day-to-day aspects of the project and act as champions for the initiative within their teams.

5. Balancing AI innovation with practical application

It’s easy to get excited about cutting-edge AI, but not every new development is suitable for your use case. Every algorithm has their advantages and disadvantages, and overcomplicating the process with the latest algorithms can often backfire. In many cases, simpler models that are more data efficient, explainable, extrapolate better to new regimes and provide robust results without the risk of overfitting or other complications.

The key is to focus on practical applications of AI that solve real problems within your organisation. Sometimes, sticking with well-established methods and technologies is more effective and scalable.

6. Combining AI with human expertise

Although AI can process vast amounts of data and generate valuable insights, human expertise is crucial for interpreting those insights and making strategic decisions. AI is a powerful tool, but it is not a replacement for human judgment and in many applications, it is key that operators stay in control.

Organisations implementing Industrial AI should have the right mix of technical experts, industry veterans, and operations professionals to oversee the AI initiatives. This collaborative approach ensures that AI outputs are not only accurate but also practical and aligned with broader business goals.

Engaging external experts with experience in Industrial AI implementations can significantly enhance an organisation’s ability to deploy AI effectively. They can bring valuable insights into best practices, identify the most promising applications, and help guide the scaling of AI initiatives across the company.

Ahmad Al-Khowaiter, EVP technology & innovation addresses the LEAP conference. (Image source: Aramco)

Aramco’s executive vice president of technology & innovation, Ahmad Al-Khowaiter, spoke at the LEAP 2025 tech event in Riyadh about the “limitless opportunity” presented by the rapid development of AI and big data

Al-Khowaiter highlighted the positive impact of AI solutions on sustainability, safety and reliability, adding that the real challenge is scaling AI applications across industrial sized operations to maximise value, requiring three main enablers: huge amounts of real-world data; computing power; and talent, ie subject matter experts.

“These three factors are helping Aramco get ahead, and stay ahead,” he remarked.

Three key enablers

“We have more than 90 years of propriety data from our extensive geological, seismic and process surveys and every day we collect information from 10 billion data points across our facilities, which goes straight to our engineering solutions centre…And when it comes to computing power, we have investing heavily recently.

“We recently increased our data storage capacity to 1,500 petabytes and we doubled our data centre power. We operate a diverse set of supercomputers, including Dammam 7, one of the fastest in the region and a number of NVIDIA Superpods. Last year we announced our partnership with Groq to deliver the first AI inferencing centre in the region.

“Last year we also announced the launch of aramcoMETABRAIN, the world’s first industrial Large Language Model. Today it is serving our business with a 70 billion parameter model and I’m excited to say we have a one trillion parameter model in development.

“And as DeepSeek showed, building capable AI models isn’t limited to global tech companies. It is within reach of enterprises, even start-ups, to design AI suited to their own businesses. We have believed this from the beginning, developing our own models with our own data.

“Which is why it gives me great pleasure to introduce our latest innovation, Plant METABRAIN, a time series transformer model, utilising large time series data sets. Using these data sets we’re able to model the process, the real time processes that underly our operations and we are able to provide actionable insight to operators, engineers and scientists.

“By working in real time, and with minimal user input, it will also anticipate demand, optimise operations, predict product quality and maximise production.

“This frees our experts up to focus on more value-added tasks, rather than being busy with troubleshooting or developing models from the ground up.”

Al-Khowaiter outlined measures Aramco is taking to develop its “human intelligence” to maximise this data and infrastructure, training more than 6,000 AI developers across the company
and working with world leading institutions to educated its employees.

“We’re also using the engineers, scientists and operators we already have to work with those AI developers to train new models, making them more robust and more reliable,” he said.

Turning to the energy demand posed by AI, he commented that Aramco’s investments in lower carbon technology such as carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and renewables can help to lower the carbon footprint of this growth in demand.

Concluding, he said “Aramco is not only using our unique size and scale to maximise the use of AI on an industrial scale, but our decades worth of data and most importantly, our subject matter experts, the talent of people. That keeps the human experience and human ingenuity at the heart of all we do and will let us leap into a new world of industrial excellence.”

Collaboration for AI-enabled industrial smartphones

Also at LEAP, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and Aramco Digital, the digital and technology subsidiary of Aramco announced their collaboration to develop the world’s first AI-enabled industrial 5G smartphones with native support for the 450MHz spectrum. Support for 450 MHz spectrum allows 5G IoT devices, edge computing and end-users to connect to a new generation of AI-enabled industrial applications, initially focusing on advanced industrial solutions for Aramco. Qualcomm Technologies and Aramco Digital previously announced the deployment of Aramco’s first generative AI industrial IoT solutions, which are improving operational safety, efficiency, and sustainability at Aramco sites. The new industrial smartphones will give Aramco users another way to connect to these advanced industrial applications.

The Pipetech team. (Image source: Pipetech)

Flow remediation specialist, Pipetech, has developed a new Downhole Scale Remediation (DSR) technology which it will be launching in the coming months

The new product, under development for the last two years, is set to redefine wellbore cleaning solutions for the global energy sector while promoting sustainable practices, addressing the industry challenges posed by scale, wax, and other naturally occurring deposits that obstruct fluid flow, compromise production efficiency and create unsuitable surfaces for bridge plugs. 

New approach

The technology offers a different, more sustainable approach to tackling wellbore scale; instead of using corrosive chemicals, the DSR leverages a rotational high-pressure water-jetting system, which tracks and adapts to a wellbore’s varying inner diameter (ID), delivering precise and effective cleaning for safety valves, side pocket mandrels, and other critical areas, efficiently restoring surfaces to bare metal and thus enhancing production efficiency while significantly reducing environmental impact.

Patented in the UK and US, the technology has achieved proof of concept during qualification trials and has also undergone client trials with leading energy operators. Field trials are set to take place this year to demonstrate the DSR’s superiority over existing chemical and mechanical methods, while global testing is scheduled across redundant wells in the UK, Norway, and other international locations to confirm its adaptability and reliability in diverse field conditions.

Leonard Hamill, operations director at Pipetech commented, “The DSR technology represents a major step forward for the energy sector. By combining advanced engineering with an eco-conscious approach, we’re providing a solution that tackles a long-standing operational challenge while aligning with the industry’s sustainability goals. We are proud to lead this innovation and are thrilled by the strong interest we’ve received from major operators, which underscores the DSR’s potential to become a game-changer in flow assurance.”

The Hummingbird all-electric land cementing unit. (Image source: Baker Hughes)

With emissions reduction and efficiency gains at the top of the agenda for oil and gas companies, Baker Hughes has launched three new electrification technologies for onshore and offshore operations at its 25th Annual Meeting in Florence, Italy

The Hummingbird all-electric land cementing unit is a 100% electric solution that replaces diesel engines with grid-connected or battery-powered motors. The Hummingbird’s dual-power functionality performs onshore cementing operations with lower emissions and noise levels compared to traditional solutions.

The use of electronic, rather than hydraulic components, results in lower maintenance costs and requirements while enhancing reliability in the field. Hummingbird is designed to operate in high-pressure situations and is equipped with monitoring and control systems that provide enhanced cement job control and consistency across applications.

Part of Baker Hughes’ intelligent completions portfolio, SureCONTROL Plus interval control valves (ICV) enable electrical remote operations for more efficient zonal control of both subsea and dry tree wells. These ICVs replace numerous hydraulic lines with a single electrical line, simplifying complex installations, reducing rig time and accelerating production while limiting the need for costly interventions.

SureCONTROL Plus can control a higher number of zones than traditional hydraulic ICVs for enhanced production. The digital telemetry system provides continuous data, which enables improved asset performance management and proactive maintenance of downhole tools.

Baker Hughes also announced its new all-electric subsea production system, a fully electric topside-to-downhole solution for offshore operations. This modular system allows for existing tree designs to be seamlessly updated for electric operations, while electro-hydraulic trees currently operating in mature assets can be retrofitted for full electrification. This transition will result in enhanced production control, increased reliability and lower carbon emissions throughout the life of the field. The elimination of hydraulics will also result in reduced cost, time and complexity of subsea installations.

The all-electric subsea production system is designed for shallow and deep-water developments, making it ideal for subsea carbon capture, utilisation and storage fields as well as long offset tieback applications.
“Hydrocarbons will remain key sources of global energy for decades, and it is essential that these resources are produced with minimal carbon footprint,” said Amerino Gatti, executive vice president, Oilfield Services & Equipment at Baker Hughes. “By electrifying the production value chain, we can enhance operations to be cleaner, safer and more efficient, while continuing to supply the energy required worldwide.”

Oil and gas companies are increasingly looking at electrification as a means to reduce carbon footprint. Electrification is a key plank of ADNOC’s decarbonisation strategy, for example, in the drive for net-zero emissions by 2045. Since January 2022, ADNOC has received 100% of its grid power supply from Emirates Water and Electricity Company’s (EWEC) nuclear and solar energy sources. The NOC is also constructing a US$3.8bn sub-sea transmission network, connecting ADNOC’s offshore operations to the onshore power network and displacing gas turbine generation, with the potential to reduce ADNOC’s offshore carbon footprint by up to 50%.