Abu Dhabi’s ADNOC and artificial intelligence (AI) firm G42 on Monday signed a deal with Sam Altman-led frontier AI lab OpenAI to deploy advanced AI capabilities across the state energy firm’s operations, marking the latest step in the ChatGPT maker’s deepening ties with the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The agreement, signed at the ADIPEC conference in Abu Dhabi, will make ADNOC the first company in the energy sector to deploy the ChatGPT parent’s frontier technology, ADNOC CEO Sultan Al Jaber said.
Altman, during the occasion, said that OpenAI’s most advanced models would be used to “take the hardest, most valuable problems” that ADNOC faces.
“We can bring down the cost of delivering great AI in almost every way, except, you know, atoms are still atoms and the physical world that has to power this. I think that is going to be the very dominant factor of the cost and the abundance and how much we can create,” he added.
The deal was announced as the OpenAI boss met Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan while attending the UAE’s largest oil and gas gathering.
As per the Abu Dhabi Media Office, apart from ADNOC and G42, OpenAI also signed deals with other Abu Dhabi vehicles, including with wealth fund Mubadala and G42 unit Inception42, to apply advanced AI capabilities to investment analysis, opportunity identification, and risk assessment.
OpenAI, that postponed its IPO amid the safety concerns around its products, is racing to secure investor commitments before rival Anthropic’s expected public market debut in mid-November.
While Abu Dhabi-based MGX has reportedly been mentioned as one of the investor commitment targets, the accelerated fundraising, if successful, would value the ChatGPT maker at over USD 1.4 trillion.
OpenAI is also involved in the first phase of a five-gigawatt AI data centre project, one of the biggest outside the US, that the UAE is building in partnership with American tech companies.