ADNOC Expands STEM Program to Empower UAE Students in AI

• ADNOC launched the “Future of AI Schools Challenge” to equip UAE students with AI skills, attracting 14,500 students from 351 schools, with 80 finalists presenting AI solutions.
• Students competed in three categories: real-world impact, innovation, and community engagement, with top teams awarded gold, silver, and bronze.
• ADNOC is advancing AI with ENERGYai, the world’s first agentic AI solution, to enhance exploration, production, and seismic analysis, aiming to be the most AI-capable energy company.

ADNOC has announced, in a statement uploaded to its website lately, that it has widened its Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education initiative "to equip UAE students with artificial intelligence (AI) and higher technology through an initiative known as 'STEM for Life, Future of AI Schools Challenge".

The release noted that the Challenge began in January 2025 and recently concluded its finals in the Abu Dhabi Energy Center. The Challenge attracted 14,500 students from 351 schools within the country, noted the release, adding that 896 teachers guided students to "design, build, and pitch AI solutions that solved one of three themes: creating real-world impact, demonstrating blue sky thinking, or winning the hearts and minds of local communities".

1,500 applications were received, out of which 80 students across 27 teams were chosen to attend the final, the release added. Champion teams presented their projects to a jury comprising representatives from the Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology, the Ministry of Education, Abu Dhabi Early Childhood Authority, ADNOC, Khalifa University, ADNOC Technology Academy, Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation, Microsoft, and Neubio, the release added.

After a review by the jury, nine teams each won the gold, silver, and bronze ranks respectively, the release stated, saying that submissions "included stunning AI-enabled solutions".

The ceremony was graced by Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and Managing Director and Group CEO of ADNOC, Sarah bint Yousif Al Amiri, Minister of Education, Abdulla Humaid Al Jarwan, Abu Dhabi Department of Energy Chairman, Hajer Ahmed Mohamed Al Thehli, Secretary-General of the Education, Human Development and Community Council, Khalaf Abdulla Rahma Al Hammadi, Abu Dhabi Pension Fund Director-General, and other ADNOC senior executives, the statement highlighted.

The announcement added that, in the final, ADNOC and AIQ demonstrated how ENERGYai, the world's first agentic AI solution for the energy sector, can be used to enhance decision making, unlock value, and drive operational efficiencies.

Saif Al Falahi, Group Business Support & Special Tasks Director, ADNOC, stated in the press release, "we heartily congratulate the winning teams of the Future of AI Schools Challenge for their creativity, imagination, and can-do spirit".

"With our STEM education initiative, ADNOC is empowering the UAE's future generation with the mindset and skills to succeed in an AI-centric world, as we strive to become the world's most AI-capable energy company, we will keep developing the next generation of change-makers who will leverage the potential of AI to spur advancement for the UAE and unlock the solutions to global challenges", Al Falahi added.

In announcing, ADNOC said that its Future of AI Schools Challenge "seeks to empower students with the competencies required for an intelligent technology-enabled future and leverage the power of AI to drive value and address real-world problems".

In a release to Rigzone last January by the ADNOC group, the company announced that it and AIQ had successfully completed the trial period of ENERGYai, which ADNOC termed "the world's first of its kind agentic artificial intelligence solution for the energy industry".

“The 90 day proof of concept trial demonstrated that ENERGYai’s agentic AI - AI ‘agents’ that are trained in specific tasks across the energy value chain - can deliver significant improvements in the pace and accuracy of upstream exploration through rapid, precise, and detailed seismic survey analysis, alongside relevant, actionable insights to support production optimization at ADNOC’s existing wells”, ADNOC stated in that release.

ADNOC noted in this release that ENERGYai integrates a 70 billion parameter Large Language Model (LLM) with over 50 years of ADNOC’s knowledge and petabytes of its proprietary data 'to drive optimization and efficiency across the company’s operations'.

In a speech at CERAWeek in Houston, Texas, which was posted on the ADNOC site back in March, Jaber said, “we first applied AI to our operations five years ago”.

Today, we have adopted AI extensively throughout the value chain from the control room to the board room. We have developed world class solutions bespoke to our requirements through our home-grown AI company, AIQ," he further added.

"More than 200 AI applications are being rolled out across ADNOC's operations, ranging from exploration through refining to logistics and strategic decision making", he further elaborated. "Our lead AI program, Energy to the Power of AI, is deploying agentic AI at record scale for the first time", he continued to say.

ADNOC on its website says it is working towards becoming the world's most AI-capable energy company, 'embedding AI at every layer of our business'.