Encouraging the Development of AI in Facility Planning – Assessing the Challenges and Opportunities in Scaling Artificial Intelligence with a Digital Twin
Discussions in the second session turned immediately to the practical tensions that arise when AI and digital twins are introduced into critical industrial environments. Rather than treating these technologies as abstract ambitions, the speakers unpacked the realities surrounding trust, data clarity, and the cultural readiness needed to move beyond isolated pilots. Their exchanges revealed how easily technical progress can stall when the workforce is not equipped to understand model behaviour or challenge its output.
Several contributors drew attention to the fragmented nature of industrial systems, where vendors, applications and workflows often operate in incompatible silos. This lack of a shared data language complicates everything from cybersecurity to model reliability, and places pressure on operators who must make decisions with partial or inconsistent information. While AI can accelerate analysis and scenario modelling, its value depends on careful governance and on subject matter experts remaining firmly involved in interpretation and validation.
The conversation broadened into reservoir and subsurface contexts, where data uncertainty is inherent and yet decisions carry significant operational consequences. Here, custom AI agents offer clear potential in screening, pattern detection and short-term forecasting, but the panel was unequivocal that physics, operational experience and domain judgement must anchor the final call. AI, they argued, should expand human capability, not replace it.
As the session closed, the group pointed to the ingredients that will shape successful AI adoption over the next five years: robust data foundations, transparent models, consistent semantics across the ecosystem, and organisations willing to invest in skills as much as technology. In their view, the sector’s next advances will come not from algorithms alone, but from building environments where people, processes and systems are genuinely aligned.
Speakers
- Yara Alatrach, Digital Energy & Sustainability Advisor, Microsoft
- Saleh Al-Wadei, Director (A): Maintenance Manufacturing Shops Department, Saudi Aramco
- Dorzhi Badmaev, Senior Specialist, Cognitive Reservoir Management, Subsurface Excellence Division, AI Champion, ADNOC
- Berdivar Saurbayev, Head of Operational Transformation, Energy, EPAM
- Izwan Adnan MBA, Senior Reservoir Engineer, Chairman SPE Northern Emirates Section Dragon Oil
- Dr. Ebrahim Al Alkeem, Director National Risk & Policies Department General Secretariat of the National Anti -Money Laundering and Combating Financing of Terrorism and Financing of illegal Organizations Committee
Moderator
