UAE state oil company announces OpenAI partnership

UAE state oil company ADNOC today announced a partnership with OpenAI, saying it would be the world’s first energy firm to deploy OpenAI Frontier, an advanced artificial intelligence platform. — AFP pic

First Published: Monday, 02 Nov 2026 5:28 PM MYT

ABU DHABI, Nov 2 — UAE state oil company ADNOC today announced a partnership with OpenAI, saying it would be the world’s first energy firm to deploy OpenAI Frontier, an advanced artificial intelligence platform.

The deal was announced as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman attended the UAE’s flagship oil industry event in Abu Dhabi, which has bet heavily on the technology in a bid to diversify its economy away from energy.

Gulf countries have been struggling to export oil since Iran began blockading the Strait of Hormuz and targeting tankers in the area, but the US military has been escorting ships through the route.

The blockade has caused a spike in oil prices.

ADNOC said in a statement that OpenAI’s models will enable it to to be “the first energy company in the world to use this technology to value every barrel while it is still in the ground”.

The deal will also see ADNOC and OpenAI partner with G42, and Emirati AI company chaired by the brother of the UAE’s president.

The oil-rich UAE is a top AI player in the Middle East and has been seeking to become a dominant force in the field globally.

“From the moment ChatGPT was born, the world has asked what energy can do for AI, and now together we will find out what AI can do for energy,” said ADNOC’s managing director and CEO Sultan Al Jaber at the ADIPEC oil conference.

Altman praised the UAE as having “consistently been the most forward-looking country in the world for AI adoption”.

According to an ADNOC statement, “OpenAI’s advanced reasoning models will integrate decades of data across thousands of wells, multiple stacked reservoirs and hundreds of surface facilities together with capital, cost and commercial considerations, to prepare and optimise full-field development master plans”.

“Interconnected AI agents will continuously forecast crude oil supply, demand, prices and margins, predict their impacts before they occur, and weigh the commercial and operational impact of every decision as one integrated process,” the statement said.

No financial details of the deal were disclosed.

The UAE has been betting heavily on AI since 2017, when it named the world’s first AI minister and became the second country after Canada to unveil a national AI strategy.

A year later, G42 was founded with backing from Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth fund Mubadala. Chaired by the UAE president’s brother, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, it offers a range of AI products and employs more than 23,000 people.

Last year, intense lobbying bore fruit when the US approved the export of advanced Nvidia chips to both the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Yesterday, Saudi state oil firm Aramco said it was taking a 49 per cent stake in Saudi state-backed AI company Humain, injecting cash and assets as the tech firm tries to scale up to meet rising demand.

Aramco, one of the world’s biggest companies by market capitalisation, will inject about 9.9 billion Saudi riyals (RM10.7  billion) into Humain this year along with AI, compute and digital assets. — AFP