The Role of Computing and AI in the Energy Transition

The energy transition and a rapid digital transformation pose compounding challenges and opportunities to the entire energy sector in an uncertain world. Shell has traditionally been an “energy innovation company”, committing multiple times to deploying technologies that were not even developed at the time (e.g. deepwater oil and gas exploration and production). Innovation will once again play a crucial role as Shell commits to driving the energy transition to a lower-carbon world. Chemical and Chemical Engineering technologies, products and processes that are not yet mature, developed or even known will play important roles in reaching a net-zero carbon emissions system in 2050 or earlier. Industry partnerships, academic collaborations and consortia have a unique role to play. In such open innovation setting, academic ingenuity and creativity combine uniquely with industrial strength and scale-up power. Such collaborative programs can address both fundamental technical and practical engineering challenges. In this presentation we will describe some of the technology challenges of balancing a net-zero emissions strategy with the societal mandate to provide affordable energy for powering lives. Digital technologies and artificial intelligence are major levers in this quest, but only if understood deeply and in detail. “Digital” and AI innovation cannot be outsourced, and instead build on decades of in-house science skill and talent development. We will present several examples of now-core-business applications in Shell that started as intellectual science exercises with no plan and no budget. We demonstrate that customer centricity and the power of scientific curiosity must be carefully balanced in a technology driven uncertain world.