Gecko Robotics Brings Raptor Inspection Robot to ADNOC and Weighs Making Robots in UAE

The robot, called Raptor, uses sensors and sound waves to find structural weaknesses and assess damage without taking facilities offline. The company showed it to The National at the exhibition. The rollout comes as energy infrastructure across the Gulf has been attacked during the Iran war. According to the report, Gecko is also widening its partnership with ADNOC through an agreement with ADNOC Onshore, expected to be announced on Wednesday, to deploy robotics and AI models for critical infrastructure.

Loosararian said the technology could shorten recovery after strikes on energy assets. Operators would be able to judge what damage has occurred, which "increases how quickly you can get assets back up and running," he said.

What Raptor Does

Gecko says Raptor is three to five times faster than its previous robot and gathers millions of data points on each inspection. The company claims it is up to 50 times faster than competitors' robots. Loosararian said Raptor allows "a 50 x reduction in the cost of data collection" while raising data quality by about the same amount. The inspection data feeds a digital layer that maps each asset and, he said, tells operators "what to fix, how to fix it", helping to extend equipment life and the time between maintenance.

The company already deploys tens of robots a day in the region, according to the report. Demand has also come from the military: Gecko signed a $300 million agreement with the US Navy last week for robotics applications. Loosararian said the military's use of robotics and AI to keep critical assets ready applies equally to energy infrastructure during regional conflict.

The Case for Local Production

Gecko is looking at building robots in the UAE as demand grows, so it can develop and test them closer to the facilities where they work. Loosararian said this would help avoid what he called "the death of a lab", where equipment designed in controlled conditions fails in the field. "There's an abundance of energy infrastructure in the UAE," he said.

He was blunt about what is at stake for operators. "The energy companies that are looking more and more like tech companies are going to be the ones that win the day," he said, warning that companies not moving towards AI-native and robotics-based operations risk falling behind.

A Local Robotics Push

The UAE government is trying to build up local robotics manufacturing as part of its industrial strategy. Ibtisam Al Saadi, acting assistant undersecretary for the industrial development sector at the Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology, told The National that robotics is becoming a major source of demand across sectors, both in production and in making business easier for end users. She said young Emiratis were showing growing interest in robotics programming and manufacturing, alongside locally made drones and 3D printing.

For Gulf energy producers, the deal shows that AI and robotics spending is now being made with security in mind as well as efficiency. Faster inspections and damage assessment have become part of operational resilience, a theme that has run through this year's ADIPEC.