Powering the energy transition with AI and collaborative partnerships

While global energy demand continues to rise, tackling the trilemma of energy security, equity, and the climate crisis remains one of our greatest challenges. The topic continues to be front and center for leaders, and the main theme at industry events.

In all my conversations with customers and partners, whether on a panel, at events, or in discussions with senior executives, we talk about the emerging trend toward a collaborative ecosystem that uses digital technologies to address the energy trilemma—an ecosystem that brings together government entities, public and private companies, technology firms, and cloud hyperscalers to resolve the trilemma’s complex challenges while ensuring we address each challenge equally without sacrificing one over another.

Accelerate decarbonization, together

The recent ADIPEC 2023 event focused on “Decarbonizing. Faster. Together.” Many of the discussions centered on how we can empower the industry to produce cleaner energy at a more affordable price, while working together to decarbonize the entire energy value chain—whether it’s the upstream, midstream, or downstream segment of the industry. In one of my interview panels, I spoke with partner AVEVA on the topic of “Social Impact—Sustainability Changemaker” and how strong partnerships are forged to advance the energy transition toward sustainability and decarbonization.

In addition to in-depth discussions with executives and thought-provoking panel discussions, one of our main highlights was a visit by His Excellency Suhail Al Mazrouei, Minister of Energy in the United Arab Emirates, at the Microsoft booth. It was truly an honor, and we were deeply grateful for the opportunity to present our key initiatives centered on energy transformation in the region. Our technology innovations for a sustainable future are designed to help energy organizations empower their workforce, operate for the future, accelerate to net-zero, and unlock sustainable business. These pillars represent our focus areas in driving innovation and sustainability across the industry to address the energy trilemma.

At ADIPEC, Microsoft hosted a luncheon focused on our recently launched product Azure Data Manager for Energy which is accelerating data transformation and data-driven decisions to improve operational efficiency and accelerate time to market on the enterprise-grade, cloud-based OSDU® Data Platform service. With a flexible, open energy platform that partners and developers can build upon and customize, customers can take advantage of easy interoperability across an extensible application ecosystem. We are pleased to be working with many leading energy partners on Azure Data Manager for Energy and continue adding others to our extensive partner ecosystem. 

Microsoft partners share our commitment, and we consider this global partner ecosystem as one of our super-powers. At ADIPEC we had the opportunity to showcase solutions from Accenture, Aspen Technology, AVEVA, Bosch, Cognite, SLB, and Yokogawa. And just in-time for ADIPEC 2023, we partnered with Context Labs, which provides a solution called Decarbonization-as-a-Service.

The offering from Context Labs has been well-adopted in the United States and sparked well-deserved interest at the event with customers in the Middle East and other regions. The success doesn’t surprise Darryl Willis, Corporate Vice President Energy and Resources Industry at Microsoft. He said:

“Digital technology is essential in generating timely and accurate climate intelligence needed for the world’s sustainability journey. With innovative collaboration and by leveraging our cloud technologies, Context Labs’ solutions and market adoption are helping provide emissions insights at pace and scale.” 

How AI and partnerships are reinventing the energy and resources sector

Machine learning and advanced AI have been deployed in the industry for some time. However, generative AI has been recently making headlines. Generative AI promises to change the way we live and work, and it’s already transforming the energy industry. For more context on the sector’s use of AI read last month’s blog, The era of AI: Transformative AI solutions powering the energy and resources industry, which highlights Microsoft partnerships with SLB, Cognite, Bentley, and others to accelerate the development and deployment of AI-driven, sustainable energy solutions.

The use of applied and generative AI is improving back-office operations that support business processes, production, and sustainability across energy organizations. Decision-makers are also using AI-powered digital technologies to intelligently optimize production and asset longevity, empower the current lean workforce, and recruit the next generation of employees. AI is also helping customers achieve net-zero goals and unlock new sustainable business models through carbon reduction initiatives and alternative energies such as hydrogen, geothermal, nuclear, wind, and solar.

For example, our customer Petrobras recently deployed a generative AI solution called ChatPetrobras to approximately 96,000 employees and service providers to boost daily productivity. ChatPetrobras assists teams in various routines and daily tasks so that they can focus on more innovative projects such as new energies, sustainability, and emissions reduction.

Our partners are also building their own unique solutions on our AI platform. For instance, SLB was named Energy and Resources Partner of the Year for transforming its DELFI platform based on Azure Data Manager for Energy and leveraging high-performance computing and AI to optimize simulation workflows for energy exploration, development, and carbon storage.

Cognite also stands out with solutions like the new Cognite AI, a comprehensive suite of generative AI capabilities in Cognite Data Fusion, the company’s flagship DataOps platform. Cognite, a finalist for the Energy and Resources Partner of the Year award, builds on the power of the Microsoft Cloud and its generative AI capabilities to simplify access to complex, industrial data and enable actionable insights. Based on Microsoft Azure, Cognite Data Fusion uses AI to automate the ingestion and processing of operational, engineering, and IT data from multiple sources to create data models and build new analytics dashboards, digital solutions, and digital twins.

Innovation at a rapid pace

For the energy and resources sector, thriving is no longer about riding the waves of commodity prices. It is about empowering the industry to become more intelligent and innovative by driving higher efficiency, reliability, safety, and sustainability. This in turn builds a resilient energy value chain which can withstand the industry’s cyclic nature.

The energy transition is close to all our hearts. For me personally, energy transition means providing affordable, reliable, accessible, and clean energy on a global scale so that we can provide equal opportunity to everyone, everywhere and not leave any nation or person behind in this transition.

For an equitable, orderly, and secure energy transition, we believe AI-powered digital technologies are the key to unlocking significant opportunities for the industry and beyond. By taking advantage of an AI-enhanced digital solution, energy firms can light up innovation and collaboration to simultaneously address the triple challenges of energy security, equity, and climate crisis.

The Road to COP28

As the curtains come down on a spectacular ending at ADIPEC 2023, the United Arab Emirates is already gearing up to host the 28th session of the Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC (COP28). The theme for COP28 is all about decarbonization and as its President-Designate Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber said to a standing ovation at CERAWeek earlier this year, “Houston, we have a problem.” His message was loud and clear, that energy leaders in this room have the knowledge, experience, expertise, and the resources needed to address the dual challenge of driving sustainable progress while holding back emissions.

My takeaway from CERAWeek and ADIPEC that I’m carrying forward to COP28 is that now is the time to act, act quickly, and act together. Let’s move the needle in reducing emissions and decarbonizing the energy value chain from wellhead to the grid to end users. We can only do this if we work together as an ecosystem committed to a sustainable future for everyone.

Learn more about Microsoft for Energy and Resources and AI solutions

• Microsoft for Energy and Resources
• Microsoft AI solutions
• Microsoft Azure for Energy
• Microsoft Azure AI services
• Learn more about themes and actions critical for energy transition
• Enable your data to do more in the cloud with our Azure Data Manager for Energy
• Microsoft brings mixed reality and new immersive collaboration tools to industrial metaverse customers

The post Powering the energy transition with AI and collaborative partnerships appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Source: Microsoft Industry Blog