Sam Altman’s OpenAI is heading to the oil fields
The deal was signed on Monday at ADIPEC 2026, with Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan present. Its ENERGYai system runs on a 70-billion-parameter model trained on 50-plus years of company data. The firm counts more than 200 AI applications and 70 robotics use cases. It has also rolled out ChatGPT Enterprise to over 40,000 employees, with adoption above 97%. It is also a partner in the first phase of the UAE’s 5-gigawatt AI data centre project.
OpenAI has signed a multi-year partnership with Abu Dhabi’s state oil giant ADNOC and AI firm G42. OpenAI also signed deals with Mubadala and G42 unit Inception42.
ADNOC says it is the first energy firm to deploy OpenAI Frontier. “This is industrial AI at scale,” ADNOC chief Sultan Al Jaber said. Altman told Reuters energy is one of the company’s own challenges. “Atoms are still atoms,” he said, adding that the physical world will dominate the cost of AI.
It puts OpenAI’s frontier AI inside the daily running of an oil company. The company claims the technology can turn field planning across thousands of wells from a months-long job into one that takes hours. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was in town for the event. This builds on what ADNOC already has. The partnership also covers cyber defence through OpenAI’s Daybreak Blue initiative. For OpenAI, the deal deepens ties with the Gulf. Those cover investment analysis and risk assessment.