S08 ORME 2 2021 Digitalisation Ospreydata_Layout 1 10/03/2021 10:24 Page 30
Technology
Redefining the energy industry with
digital technologies HERE IS NO doubt that the COVID19 pandemic has had the effect of accelerating the digital transformation, particularly the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). Taking part in a fireside chat with Lorenzo Simonelli, chairman and CEO of Baker Hughes, and Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, commented that during the pandemic, “Every industry is being transformed by that most malleable of resources, digital technology, both for business continuity and resilience. This is the most at scale experiment of highly constrained remote work. If you take energy, everything around operations had to be remoted. But more important is the transformative effect in how we serve our customers, how we improve our outcomes, our efficiency inside a company. Every company will build their own proprietary software edge, and more importantly also use world-class technology so they’re not reinventing the wheel.” Asked about the new frontiers in technology and how they will impact the energy sector, Nadella remarked, “The compute architecture, whether it’s in the cloud or on the edge, the amount of infinite elastic compute that is going to be available, this distributed computing fabric being embedded in the real world is going to have a transformative effect. And with all this compute, making sense of lots and lots of data, the variety, volume and velocity with which it’s being generated, you can reason over it in real time and create predictions and analytical power. So the AI layer is going to bring a lot of value to every firm. When you look at the frontiers of what’s happening with augmented reality and mixed reality, it shows where the world is going, and the interface itself becomes more natural and embedded in the real world.” Nadella highlighted the importance of collaboration and partnership in creating opportunities for the energy transition and driving more sustainable operations, with many examples of technology companies
Image Credit: Baker Hughes
The use of digital technologies to redefine the energy industry and accelerate the energy transition was a strong theme at the Baker Hughes Annual Meeting, which had the theme ‘Energy Forward’.
T
30
oilreview.me
Issue 2 2021
The pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation.
The AI layer is going to bring a lot of value to every firm.” teaming up with energy companies to help them to adopt scaled AI solutions across their operations to meet safety, sustainability and reliability goals. A good example is the newlylaunched Open AI Energy Initiative (OAI), an open ecosystem of artificial intelligence (AI)based solutions for the energy and process industries, which brings together the subject matter and industry expertise of Shell and Baker Hughes with the software capabilities of Microsoft and the AI abilities of C3 AI. “Our customers are enjoying the benefits.”
“We’ve also partnered with BP to drive their energy transition innovation across cities and energy parks,” he added. “That requires edge compute, the cloud plus the edge coming together.” Addressing the future of work, Nadella commented that the key word going forward is flexibility to accommodate the new hybrid nature of work. Collaboration and learning are fundamentally transformed, he added. “Using something like hollow lens you can have a holographic input from an engineer working remotely helping the frontline worker.” In terms of wellbeing “it is important to have data and analytics to manage that most precious resource, our time.” While technology will facilitate collaboration, learning and wellbeing, good old-fashioned management practices will also be needed to accommodate the needs of all employees, he said.
