ADIPEC Day Three Turns to Data Sovereignty and Scaling AI Across Energy Operations

In the AI, Digital and Technology Innovation programme of the Strategic Conference, Helmut von Struve, chief executive of Siemens UAE and Middle East, said AI creates the most value when it improves industry and essential services. "It is really about how we can make essential operations more productive and reliable, and how we can make them more resource-efficient," he said.

A panel on building an AI-ready energy system brought together Rakesh Jaggi, president of digital at SLB, Som Dutta, group vice president for AI and data science at DP World, and Ashish Koshy, chief executive of Inception42. They discussed the data foundations, infrastructure and operating models companies need before AI can run across their operations. The panellists agreed that the biggest returns come from treating AI as a core capability, not a string of separate pilots. On jobs, Koshy said: "It has to be not AI versus humans, but humans augmented by AI."

Who Controls Energy Data

One session dealt with energy data sovereignty: who should own and access the data moving through energy systems, and how it can be shared without exposing critical assets. Dennis Jol, chief executive of AIQ, the ADNOC-backed AI company that co-hosted the event's AI Zone, said that "collaboration moves at the speed of trust". He described the UAE ecosystem as a five-layer cake of energy, data, infrastructure, sovereign cloud and models. "Ultimately, data has to belong to the customer, and customers have to trust us," Jol said. He added that cybersecurity rules need to be strengthened and that "sovereignty does not need to be national; it just needs to exist within your own framework."

John Gilley, chief executive of Kent, spoke alongside Dr Ahmed Mohamed Alebri, chief executive of ADNOC Onshore, on cross-sector partnerships. Gilley said the industry's task is "connecting the world's appetite for data with the world's appetite for energy", and noted that each country wants control of its own data and energy.

Lessons From the US Backlash

A session on US energy policy took place a day after midterm elections in which data centres became a local campaign issue. Joseph McMonigle, president of the Global Center for Energy Analysis, said the expansion of AI and digital computing would continue but that the industry must change its approach. "It needs to pay more attention to the local level," he said, and called for some form of inclusion for affected communities.

Panellists also discussed paying for the physical infrastructure behind AI and energy security. Tarek El Molla, Egypt's former minister of petroleum and mineral resources, now founder of Luminant Energy Consultancy, said governments would need to offer more incentives to attract private and multinational capital. "This is not investment that is easily raised," he said, predicting that policies would become more relaxed in the coming years. Martina Strong, Bechtel's region president for Central Europe and the Middle East, said markets now view large, complex infrastructure investments very differently than they used to, particularly in the region.

The expanded AI Zone included exhibitors showing reservoir modelling, autonomous operations, grid management and robotics. Organisers presented these as signs that AI is moving into operational use in the sector.

Why It Matters

For Gulf energy producers investing in AI, the day's message was that the hard parts of scaling are now practical ones: data ownership, cybersecurity, financing and public consent. The discussions at the region's largest energy gathering suggest these issues will decide who gets returns from AI in the energy sector.