Oil chief: AI will incentivise renewables investment

Renewables, batteries, gas and nuclear all necessary, says Adnoc CEO

Sultan al-Jaber, CEO of Adnoc, said the boom in AI will incentivise energy companies to pay more attention to the renewables side of the energy mix.

As reported by the Financial Times, al-Jaber, who was president of the COP28 climate talks last year, was speaking at a meeting of oil giants, tech companies and financiers in Abu Dhabi to discuss the energy needs of AI.

As well as being head of Adnoc, Abu Dhabi's national oil company and one of the largest oil producers in the world, al-Jaber is also chair of state renewable energy company Masdar. A controversial choice as COP president, he was nevertheless credited with steering through a declaration calling for a "transition away" from fossil fuels, something that had eluded previous COPs.

Since then, oil companies including BP and Shell have rowed back on their stated commitments to renewables, but al-Jaber said the colossal energy needs of AI and the commitment of tech companies to power their data centre should be seen as an opportunity.

“We need a model that will integrate all forms of energy together. We will need more renewable energy and we need to advance battery storage technology to turn renewables from intermittent power to baseload," he told the FT. "We need gas as a bridge and we will need, in some locations, nuclear power.”

al-Jaber said Adnoc had allocated $23bn to developing low-carbon technology using AI, adding that he was optimistic that the technology would help the company reduce its primary emissions by 25% by 2030.

The company is working with Microsoft to develop AI software to identify and act upon areas to improve operational efficiency.

COP29 begins in Baku, Azerbaijan, on 11th November.