Artificial intelligence shared the spotlight with oil and gas at the opening of the world’s largest energy conference in Abu Dhabi, where OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and senior UAE officials unveiled a major partnership focused on applying advanced AI across the energy sector.
The opening ceremony of ADIPEC 2026, attended by News Outlet, brought together government officials and energy executives as the war involving Iran and disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz put unprecedented strain on global energy supplies.
Yet while delegates debated oil output, shipping lanes and energy security, Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, the UAE’s minister of industry and advanced technology and CEO of state-owned energy company ADNOC, issued a broader challenge to the technology industry.
From left, Mark Chen, OpenAI’s chief research officer; Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO; Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, crown prince of Abu Dhabi; and Ahmed Al Kuttab, chairman of Abu Dhabi’s Department of Government Enablement, announce the Machine-Readable Government initiative in Abu Dhabi (Abu Dhabi Media Office)
“From the moment ChatGPT was born, the world has asked what energy can do for AI. And now, together, we will find out what AI can do for energy,” Al Jaber told attendees as he introduced the agreement among ADNOC, OpenAI and Abu Dhabi-based technology company G42.
The announcement represents a significant advance in the UAE’s effort to become a global artificial intelligence hub. The country is drawing on its energy resources, financial power and expanding relationships with U.S. technology companies to help influence the future direction of the industry.
Still, the central question is not merely what the partnership promises, but what AI can realistically deliver for energy producers.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks at the ADIPEC 2026 opening ceremony in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Nov. 2, 2026, as ADNOC, OpenAI and G42 announce a major agreement to bring artificial intelligence into the energy sector. (Efrat Lachter/News Outlet)
Speaking exclusively with News Outlet on the conference sidelines, Dr. Angela Wilkinson, secretary general and CEO of the World Energy Council, said the most encouraging aspect of presentations by Altman and Al Jaber was their emphasis on people.
“That it isn’t about AI taking decisions for humanity, it’s about AI enabling people to make better decisions,” Wilkinson said.
Wilkinson said the expanding relationship between AI and energy should not be viewed only as an effort to automate industrial work. She described it instead as a chance to strengthen human judgment and expand what people can accomplish.
“I think what really cheered me up most is the recognition that it’s a people-centric conversation on both sides of the equation,” she said.
Dr. Angela Wilkinson, secretary general and CEO of the World Energy Council, speaks with News Outlet at ADIPEC 2026 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, about global energy markets, artificial intelligence and the need for greater resilience amid regional instability. (Efrat Lachter/News Outlet)
Amos Hochstein, a managing partner at TWG Global and former senior adviser to President Joe Biden, said the new OpenAI-UAE partnership could bring meaningful benefits, but cautioned that AI’s rapid expansion must be weighed against its financial and social costs.
Speaking with News Outlet at ADIPEC, Hochstein said, “The energy sector is going to be one of the big beneficiaries of AI coming into the sector.” He also warned that the United States must remain a leader in advanced AI without forcing Americans to bear the costs of its growth. He urged the Trump administration to work more closely with industry and other parts of society to increase the benefits while limiting the risks.
The ADNOC agreement is designed to link advanced AI systems across the company’s operations, including oilfield development, reservoir management, refining, logistics and commercial trading.
ADNOC says an early application will combine decades of data from thousands of wells, numerous reservoirs and hundreds of facilities. The aim is to produce complex development plans in hours instead of months.
The company says the technology could raise efficiency, reduce expenses and help producers react faster to shifting market conditions. Those anticipated gains have not yet been independently verified.
For the UAE, the initiative is about more than one corporate agreement.
Unmanned, AI-operated vessels are displayed at the ADIPEC 2026 conference on Nov. 2, 2026. (Efrat Lachter/ News Outlet)
The UAE is also a partner in the planned Stargate UAE project, a major computing infrastructure venture involving American technology companies. The project forms part of Abu Dhabi’s wider campaign to establish itself as an international AI center.
In a separate interview with News Outlet in Dubai, Mohammed Baharoon, director general of research center B’huth, described the country’s technology strategy as a shift from exporting oil barrels to exporting digital computing capacity.
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Baharoon said AI could drive an economic transformation on the scale of earlier industrial revolutions, creating new industries and opportunities even as it disrupts established professions.
He also warned that governments are having difficulty keeping up with the technology’s rapid progress.
“We will need to bring in the concepts of regulation at the point of development, not after the development has happened,” Baharoon told News Outlet.
He said governments and technology companies should confront potential hazards while systems are being built, rather than waiting until those systems are already widely deployed.
Attendees gather at ADIPEC 2026, one of the world’s largest energy conferences, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, from Nov. 2–5, 2026, as industry leaders examine energy security, technological innovation and AI’s expanding role. (Efrat Lachter/News Outlet)
The issue of human oversight was also prominent in Altman’s remarks at ADIPEC.
During a panel discussion, he said AI should remain a tool that serves people rather than a replacement for human decision-making.
Altman also acknowledged a major problem confronting the AI industry: the vast energy demand required to run increasingly powerful systems.
When asked to name his biggest challenge, Altman gave one answer: “Energy.”
The exchange highlighted the increasingly intertwined interests of two industries that now rely on each other.
AI companies require enormous amounts of electricity to run data centers, while energy producers are turning to AI to improve efficiency, optimize output and detect threats before they interrupt supplies.
Racks of graphics processing units (GPUs) with a closed-loop liquid-cooling system are shown inside an operating Microsoft data center. (Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images)
The stakes are especially high in the Gulf, where the war involving Iran and interruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have forced producers to rethink infrastructure protection and the reliable delivery of energy to international markets.
In his opening address, Al Jaber said nearly 1 billion barrels had been removed from global oil inventories since the Hormuz disruption, underscoring how rapidly geopolitical turmoil can affect energy supplies worldwide.
The ADNOC chief described AI as one part of a larger strategy to improve operational resilience. Companies, he argued, need systems that can anticipate threats instead of merely reacting once disruptions have occurred.
The exhibition floor at ADIPEC 2026 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where global energy companies displayed new technologies amid rising concerns about energy security and regional instability. (Efrat Lachter/News Outlet)
Altman praised the UAE’s willingness to adopt AI across government and industry, calling it the world’s most forward-looking nation in embracing the technology.
For Abu Dhabi, the growing alliance between its established energy sector and leading AI companies offers a path to expanding its economic influence beyond oil exports.
Whether those investments produce the promised gains in productivity, energy security and innovation, however, remains uncertain.
AI data center. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
As the ADIPEC discussions made clear, the issue is no longer only how much power the AI revolution will consume. It is also whether artificial intelligence can help address the energy problems that its own expansion is creating.
