OpenAI signs four Abu Dhabi agreements as ADNOC becomes first energy company to deploy OpenAI Frontier

OpenAI signed four agreements with Abu Dhabi government entities and companies on Monday, November 2, as Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, met OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and witnessed the signings, the Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported.

ADNOC deploys OpenAI Frontier

According to Reuters, state energy company ADNOC and AI firm G42 signed a deal with OpenAI at the ADIPEC conference to deploy advanced AI capabilities across ADNOC's operations. ADNOC CEO Sultan Al Jaber said the agreement makes ADNOC the first company in the energy sector to deploy OpenAI's frontier technology.

The National reported that the project will use Frontier, OpenAI's enterprise platform for building, deploying and managing AI agents launched in February, running OpenAI's GPT models on inference infrastructure based in the UAE. G42 signed through its subsidiary Inception42.

"We can bring down the cost of delivering great AI in almost every way, except, you know, atoms are still atoms and the physical world that has to power this," Altman said, adding that energy will be a dominant factor in AI's cost and abundance.

The other three agreements

• Machine-readable government: The Abu Dhabi Government and OpenAI launched an initiative to convert government policies and regulations into a form AI systems can read, to help officials with routine compliance assessments such as permits and certificates. The National said officials keep oversight and accountability for final decisions, and the first pilot, focused on food imports, is running with the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority.
• Investment analysis: Sovereign investor Mubadala, Inception42 and OpenAI agreed to apply AI to investment analysis, opportunity identification and risk assessment.
• Five-year adoption deal: Inception42 and OpenAI signed a five-year agreement to support frontier AI adoption across government, enterprise and education in the UAE.

Funding backdrop

CNBC reported that OpenAI is seeking to raise about $20 billion in a new funding round co-led by UAE investors. Abu Dhabi's MGX co-led OpenAI's $122 billion round that closed in March, and OpenAI is also a partner in the first phase of the 5-gigawatt UAE–US AI campus being built in Abu Dhabi.

Sources: Reuters via DealStreetAsia, The National, CNBC, WAM