In the early days of exploration, geologists were likely unaware that the data they collected by hand could be useful to their successors nearly a century later.
Yet advances in super computing and artificial intelligence (AI) mean that decades of drilling data which once took months to process, can now be done in hours. Even more impressive is how this data can keep generating new insights as AI models become ever more sophisticated.
It is just one of the ways that Aramco is deploying AI across its operations - from managing facility downtime, to predicting maintenance issues such as pipeline corrosion, and optimizing renewable energy production by better understanding grid intermittency.
Applied AI has a transformative impact on Aramco operations
Aramco President and CEO Amin H. Nasser described the “transformative” impact of AI on the energy industry at the 2025 World Economic Forum meeting in Davos where he revealed how Aramco leverages AI, using some 10 billion data points daily from across its operations.
The real value of such information, he observed, comes when AI specialists work with the subject matter specialists to apply the data in a meaningful and productive way.
Ahmad O. Al-Khowaiter, Aramco EVP Technology & Innovation, picked up the theme at the LEAP 2025 tech gathering.
He said: “We are using old seismic data, which we utilized in the past and reprocessing it with AI and we are now able to generate new results from old data, which creates great savings.”
“In production it means we can be more accurate, and we are able to drive our drilling operations autonomously to be able to maximize production, reduce costs and help to reduce emissions .”
Helping Aramco to leverage AI solutions across its operational network is the company’s rapidly expanding data storage capacity, which has increased to 1,500 petabytes as its data center power has doubled.
Investing in breakthrough technologies to power the future
Just as those early days of exploration and production almost 90 years ago, AI today has the potential to be similarly transformative for Aramco as it develops new energies, products and materials to help improve lives and drive innovation.
The company utilizes supercomputers, including ‘Dammam 7’, one of the fastest in the region, named after the well that led to Aramco’s first oil discovery.
In 2024, the company announced its partnership with Groq to deliver the region’s first AI inferencing center. Inferencing describes how a trained AI model uses its knowledge to analyze new data and make predictions. Aramco has also announced the launch of its METABRAIN, the world’s first industrial Large Language Model.
Furthermore, Aramco’s collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies on initial deployment of industrial generative AI solutions aims to enhance facility monitoring, predictive maintenance, and use of autonomous drones.
To continue pushing the boundaries of technological exploration and fully leverage the potential of its AI solutions, Aramco is training more than 6,000 AI developers in collaboration with leading institutions such as Imperial College, Caltech, and KAUST. At the same time, the company’s engineers, scientists and operators work alongside these developers to train new models, improving their reliability.
The World Economic Forum has recognized Aramco’s work in deploying technologies such as AI across its facilities with a total of five Global Lighthouse Awards to date – the most recent in recognition of its work at the North Ghawar Oil Producing Complex.
