ADNOC Signs Deal to Deploy OpenAI's Frontier Agents With G42

Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.on Monday signed an agreement with OpenAI and G42 under which it says it will become the first energy company to deploy OpenAI's Frontier technology, with G42 taking part through its subsidiary Inception42. The system will run on OpenAI's GPT models using inference infrastructure located in the UAE.

The agreement moves OpenAI's agent platform into heavy industry, where it will draw on an oil company's operational data rather than office documents. Under the partnership, OpenAI's models will be paired with ADNOC's industrial data to build AI systems for different parts of the company.

The multiyear partnership aims to link field development planning with operational and commercial decisions across ADNOC's energy business. The first planned use is field master planning, Gulf News reported, describing Frontier as a system for coordinating AI agents across different business functions. The agreement also covers cybersecurity work through OpenAI's Daybreak Blue programme and training for ADNOC employees.

The agreement was signed at ADIPEC, the energy conference in Abu Dhabi, after Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, met OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman, according to The National.

The ADNOC deal was one of four agreements involving Abu Dhabi organizations that OpenAI announced on Monday. Mubadala, Inception42 and OpenAI agreed to apply AI to investment analysis, finding opportunities and assessing risk, and Inception42 and OpenAI signed a five-year agreement to support frontier AI adoption across UAE government, business and education.

The companies did not disclose the value of any of the agreements, how long the ADNOC partnership runs, or who will operate the UAE-based inference infrastructure. They also did not explain the basis for describing ADNOC as the first energy company to use Frontier, or give details of the Daybreak Blue cybersecurity work.

ADNOC has worked with OpenAI's models before. In November 2024, it described plans to use its ENERGYai system for seismic interpretation, more efficient energy use and real-time process monitoring, without naming the OpenAI models involved. AIQ, which built ENERGYai with G42 and Microsoft, later valued a three-year agreement with ADNOC at $340 million. UAE investors are also among those reported to be leading OpenAI's current funding round, as AI Briefing News reported last week.