Oil-rich UAE makes massive AI bet as Sam Altman unveils ambitious plan to transform energy industry
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — At the opening of the world's largest energy conference in Abu Dhabi, artificial intelligence took center stage alongside oil and gas as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman joined senior UAE officials for the announcement of a major partnership aimed at bringing advanced AI into the energy industry.
The opening ceremony of ADIPEC 2026, attended by Fox News Digital, brought together senior government officials and energy industry leaders at a time when the war involving Iran and disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz have placed extraordinary pressure on global energy supplies.
But amid discussions about oil production, shipping routes and energy security, Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, the UAE’s minister of industry and advanced technology and chief executive of state-owned energy giant ADNOC, delivered a different challenge to the technology industry.
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"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 the audience, introducing a partnership between ADNOC, OpenAI and Abu Dhabi-based technology company G42.
The announcement marked a significant step in the UAE’s ambition to become a global center for artificial intelligence, using its energy resources, financial strength and growing partnerships with American technology companies to help shape the industry’s future.
Yet the question of what AI can actually deliver for the energy industry goes beyond the technology announcements.
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Speaking exclusively to Fox News Digital on the sidelines of the conference, Dr. Angela Wilkinson, secretary general and CEO of the World Energy Council, said the most encouraging element of the presentations by Altman and Al Jaber was their focus on the role of people.
"That it isn’t about AI taking decisions for humanity, it’s about AI enabling people to make better decisions," Wilkinson said.
Wilkinson argued that the growing relationship between energy and AI should be understood not simply as a way to automate industrial processes, but as an opportunity to expand human capabilities.
"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.
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Amos Hochstein, a managing partner at TWG Global and a former senior adviser to President Joe Biden, welcomed the potential benefits of the new OpenAI-UAE partnership but warned that the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence must be balanced against its financial and societal costs.
Speaking to Fox News Digital at ADIPEC, Hochstein said, "The energy sector is going to be one of the big beneficiaries of AI coming into the sector." But he cautioned that the U.S. must remain a leader in advanced AI while ensuring Americans are not left paying the price for its expansion, calling on the Trump administration to work more closely with industry and other sectors of society to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks.
The ADNOC partnership is intended to connect advanced AI systems across the company’s operations, from oilfield development and reservoir management to refining, logistics and commercial trading.
According to ADNOC, one of the initial applications will bring together decades of information from thousands of oil wells, multiple reservoirs and hundreds of facilities, with the goal of completing complex development plans in hours rather than months.
The company says the technology could improve operational efficiency, lower costs and help energy producers respond more quickly to changing market conditions. Those projected improvements have not yet been independently demonstrated.
For the UAE, the initiative represents something larger than a single agreement.
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The country is already a partner in the planned Stargate UAE project, a major computing infrastructure initiative involving American technology companies. The project is part of Abu Dhabi’s broader effort to establish itself as an international AI hub.
In a separate interview with Fox News Digital in Dubai, Mohammed Baharoon, director general of the research center B’huth, described the country’s technological ambitions as an evolution from exporting barrels of oil to exporting digital computing capacity.
Baharoon said the rise of AI could produce an economic transformation comparable to previous industrial revolutions, creating new industries and opportunities even as existing professions are disrupted.
But he cautioned that governments are struggling to keep pace with the technology’s development.
"We will need to bring in the concepts of regulation at the point of development, not after the development has happened," Baharoon told Fox News Digital.
He argued that governments and technology companies need to begin addressing potential dangers while systems are being created, rather than waiting until they have already entered widespread use.
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The question of human control was also central to Altman’s remarks at ADIPEC.
During a panel, Altman argued that AI should remain a tool serving people rather than replacing human decision-making.
The OpenAI chief also acknowledged a fundamental challenge facing his own industry: the enormous amount of energy required to power increasingly capable AI systems.
Asked to identify his biggest challenge, Altman answered with a single word: "Energy."
The exchange illustrated the complicated relationship between two industries that are becoming increasingly dependent on each other.
AI companies need vast quantities of electricity to operate data centers, while energy producers are increasingly looking to AI to improve efficiency, optimize production and identify vulnerabilities before they disrupt supplies.
The stakes are particularly high in the Gulf, where the war involving Iran and disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have forced energy producers to reconsider how they protect infrastructure and ensure supplies reach international markets.
In his opening address, Al Jaber warned that nearly a billion barrels had been drawn from global oil inventories since the disruption of Hormuz, illustrating how quickly geopolitical instability can affect global energy supplies.
The ADNOC chief presented artificial intelligence as one element of a broader effort to strengthen operational resilience, arguing that companies must develop systems capable of anticipating problems rather than simply responding after disruptions occur.
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Altman, meanwhile, praised the UAE’s commitment to adopting AI across government and industry, describing it as the world’s most forward-looking country in embracing the technology.
For Abu Dhabi, the emerging partnership between its traditional energy industry and the world’s leading AI companies offers an opportunity to extend its economic influence beyond oil exports.
But whether these investments ultimately deliver the promised improvements in productivity, energy security and technological innovation remains to be seen.
As the discussions at ADIPEC demonstrated, the question is no longer simply how much energy the AI revolution will require, but whether artificial intelligence can help solve some of the very energy challenges its growth is creating.