Saudi Aramco and IBM have announced plans to establish a global center for digital innovation, which aims to support economic growth in the Kingdom through swiftly-developing technologies. These include AI, big data, and computing analysis in a number of fields such as the circular economy, data science, supply chains, sustainability, cyber security, and digitalization.
Aramco Senior Deputy President for Technical Services, Ahmed Al-Saadi, explained that the strategic cooperation between Saudi Aramco and IBM in the field of research and development and expertise exchanges represents a start-up platform to achieve qualitative leaps and potential jumps in the energy sector. “This will have a great impact on the level of national and international industry,” he said, noting that through such cooperation, Aramco seeks to benefit from the advanced developments in the field of computing to boost economic growth and empower digital innovation and environmental sustainability.
A start-up platform to achieve qualitative leaps and potential jumps in the energy sector
For his part, the Director General of IBM Middle East and Africa regional office, Saad Toma, said that the strategic cooperation with Saudi Aramco aims at enhancing its determination to become part of the Kingdom’s future through complying with the Kingdom’s ambitious vision in the field of the digital economy. He hoped that such cooperation would help develop local skills and efficiencies with knowledge and necessary experience to build this vision for the future through using IBM’s technologies and experiences.
Within such plans, the two companies will cooperate to identify potential opportunities and apply the technologies to face the sustainability challenges for Saudi Aramco as well as for the energy sector as a whole.