ADIPEC 2026 Closes With a Record $67 Billion in Deals as AI Zone Grows 20%

The ADNOC-hosted exhibition and conference, which calls itself the world's largest energy event, said it drew 240,000 attendees from 170 countries. The organisers did not say how the $67 billion figure was compiled or how much of it is binding. The total still matters because the meeting came during a year of supply shocks and conflict in the region, and because technology companies took a larger share of the floor than in any earlier edition.

The AI Zone was 20% larger than last year, the organisers said. Exhibitors there included Microsoft, NVIDIA, IBM, Dell, Huawei, Honeywell, Siemens, Unitree and the Abu Dhabi companies Presight, AIQ and Etisalat. Equipment shown included Gecko Robotics' Raptor inspection robot, Honeywell's AI-based Forge Upstream platform and surveillance systems from Synectics.

The organisers named the partnership between ADNOC, OpenAI and G42 as the main announcement of the week. Under that deal ADNOC became the first energy company to deploy OpenAI's Frontier platform. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman spoke at the opening ceremony. According to the organisers' summary, he said that combining frontier AI with sovereign infrastructure and industry expertise could help energy companies make decisions faster and improve how their operations perform.

Two other deals got prominent mention. XRG, ADNOC's international investment arm, agreed to buy Shell's stake in Australia's North West Shelf LNG project. The organisers put that deal at US$1.5 billion, while earlier reports gave a figure of $1.45 billion. Separately, TA'ZIZ reached financial close on AED5.1 billion of financing for its TA'ZIZ Terminal and TA'ZIZ Ammonia projects in Ruwais, and both transactions were oversubscribed, the organisers said.

In his opening address, Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and ADNOC's managing director and group CEO, set out five priorities for energy security. The first was easier access to supply, which in his account means more strategic storage, larger product stocks and more flexible refining capacity close to consumers. The second was secure routes to market, backed by infrastructure and logistics built in advance. The third he called operational intelligence, which he described as moving beyond automating tasks to energy systems that anticipate risks and lower the cost of each barrel. The fourth was the policy, finance and insurance support that keeps trade moving, and the fifth was people.

The exhibition was the largest ADIPEC has held by floor space, the organisers said, with 2,260 companies spread across 16 halls, 30 country pavilions and four specialised zones. China, the United States and Italy sent the most exhibitors. Asian participation reached a record 353 companies, up 12% on last year, and China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea each had a national pavilion. More than 40 ministers and policymakers attended, among them senior representatives from Germany, Canada, Egypt, Austria, Japan, Kazakhstan and Nigeria. The conference programme ran to more than 380 sessions with over 1,800 speakers.

"ADIPEC 2026 has been defined by energy resilience and intelligence, not as ends in themselves, but as enablers of global stability and growth," said Abdulmunim Saif Al Kindy, chairman of ADIPEC 2026. He said that meeting rising demand will take sustained investment in supply and infrastructure, stronger international partnerships and "the intelligent deployment of technology across the energy system".

Other agreements signed during the week included ADNOC Gas's deal with Etihad WE on gas supply for power in the northern emirates, Emarat's gas infrastructure pact with Alfanar Gas Group, and NMDC's agreements with e&, Borouge and a Chinese petroleum chamber. The organisers have not published a full list of the transactions that make up the $67 billion total.