Home Energy BP Invests $5 Million in AI Startup

BP Invests $5 Million in AI Startup

In its efforts to explore various opportunities for applying machine learning in its global gas and oil business, BP recently invested £3.8 million or an equivalent of $5 million in an AI technology firm.

BP claimed that the investment in AI company Belmont Technology will facilitate the company’s ongoing operations, which involve exploring different opportunities for leveraging cognitive computing and machine learning in its worldwide oil and gas enterprise, with a key focus on the company’s upstream business.

The oil and gas company’s Upstream work revolved around various activities in “oil and natural gas exploration, field development and production.”

BP Ventures, the energy giant’s specialist VC fund established back in 2004, invested on behalf of BP in a Series A round of financing for Belmont Technology, an artificial intelligence startup based in Houston.

READ MORE: 10 Applications of Machine Learning in Oil & Gas

The Houston-based firm has come up with a cloud-based, geosciences AI-powered platform that is said to feature several distinctive capabilities such as the “knowledge graphs.”

The platform is designed in a way that allows BP workers to feed it with “platform geology, geophysics, reservoir and historic project information.”

In turn, the platform facilitates the linking of the inputs and data together in a bid to develop an overview of BP’s subsurface assets, recognizing new links to boost BP’s monitoring of its projects.

BP’s group Head of Technology David Eyton said: “This AI-based platform, which we’ve nicknamed Sandy, is expected to unlock critical data for our subsurface engineers at a much accelerated pace. Our experts will ask it questions about our reservoirs like, ‘What factors control production in the Chirag field?’. Sandy will then interpret our data, including mapping out many more scenarios than are currently constructed, helping us make faster, better informed upstream decisions.”

“This investment helps drive forward our digital strategy and further underpins our upstream operations with cutting edge technology.”

The cutting-edge technology also utilized neural networks in performing simulations of BP’s numerous projects.

The objective of the giant energy company is to identify new ways of expediting the timeframes of all its projects, from the exploration of its sites to the modeling of the reservoirs.

Belmont Technology’s chief executive officer Jean-Marie Laigle claimed: “We are excited by the prospect of deploying a cutting-edge cognitive AI solution within BP.

“Our technology enables real-time thinking for subsurface engineers, helping transform the way teams work, analyse data, understand situations and generate novel ideas.”

The investment of BP into Houston-based Belmont Technology will enable the artificial intelligence (AI) startup to improve its workforce and marks ongoing interest from BP to invest in revolutionary technology following an earlier investment of $20 million in a Series B round of financing, particularly for artificial intelligence(AI) firm Beyond Limits.

BP plc is a global oil and gas entity that is headquartered in London, England.

The company’s performance back in 2012 propelled it into the sixth-biggest oil and gas entity in the world.

BP operates in different areas of the industry including exploration and production, product refining, distribution and marketing.

Aside from that, the company has demonstrated some interests in renewable energy, especially in wind power and biofuels.

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KC Cheung
KC Cheung
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