Today's Edition
SAMIHAH ZAMAN (ABU DHABI)
The UAE’s growing AI capabilities are strengthening its stature as a global energy provider, with research-driven institutions developing innovative solutions that create both local and international impact. At the Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), researchers are working with a range of partners to ensure the dominance of the energy sector, developing technology from smart robots to efficient batteries and dedicated reasoning models.
Speaking to Aletihad on the sidelines of ADIPEC 2025, Dr Ramzi Ben Oughrem, Director of Industry and AI Innovations at MBZUAI, said efforts are underway to provide a range of capabilities to players in the energy sector.
“We have seen AI … being used at different levels in the energy field. It started with forecasting supply and demand on the grid, and trying to combine and optimise the use of fossil fuels and renewables so you could have more flexible, stable energy systems. For instance, we have an example [within our pavilion] of a battery for storing energy that can be charged during low demand, and [discharged] during [hours of peak] demand,” Dr Ben Oughrem said.
“There are many [other] examples of [possible uses]: you can deploy robots to maintain renewables sites by removing dust. And since we live in a dusty country, it’s important to ensure we have throughput from the production side [as required]. [Our AI solutions can provide] different levels of capabilities that address not only our local challenges but also global challenges when it comes to the energy sector,” he added.
At ADIPEC 2025, the intersection of AI and energy was brought front and centre. Delivering the keynote at the four-day exhibition and conference, Dr Sultan Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and Managing Director and Group CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), referred to the “twin engines of energy and AI” as crucial drivers of economic growth.
MBZUAI has a prominent pavilion at ADIPEC’s AI Zone, where the university is exhibiting technologies that embody AI as critical infrastructure to drive safety, efficiency, and competitiveness across the energy value chain. The variety of tools on display include intelligent cooling systems, autonomous inspection robotics, and AI-powered reasoning models to support decision making.
Dr Ben Ouaghrem delved into the use of advanced reasoning models — such as the university’s K2 Think — in ensuring reliable energy supply during critical periods: “K2 Think is a great model for reasoning, so if you give it certain tasks that are very complex — let’s say you have an unexpected shortage of supply of energy, or an incident happening in one of the main production sites – [it can help determine] how we should react and replan and reorganise the supply. Such a model is able to provide this complex reasoning, including the different steps to secure energy to important installations like hospitals.”
The university is also continuing to leverage its prowess for developing LLMs, demonstrated through its launch of K2 Think, a 32-billion-parameter model that outperforms larger reasoning models, and Jais, the world’s highest-quality Arabic LLM.
“You can push the technology to build dedicated LLMs for AI, and we are working with a number of partners to build important specialised LLMs to serve the country. By combining academic rigour with industry relevance, we’re helping define AI’s role in enabling a more sustainable, efficient, and secure energy future.”
