Aramco
Canvas Category OEM : Petroleum and Coal
We are one of the world’s largest integrated energy and chemicals companies, creating value across the hydrocarbon chain, and delivering societal and economic benefits to people and communities around the globe who rely on the vital energy we supply.We are committed to playing a leading role in the energy transition. We have a responsibility to help the world achieve a net-zero economy, and our people are working hard to help solve the world’s sustainability challenges.For our customers, we are a supplier of choice. For our shareholders, we provide long-term value creation. For communities around the world, our ambition is to provide reliable, affordable, and more sustainable energy.
Assembly Line
Saudi Aramco unveils industry’s first generative AI model
Aramco’s AI model is a pioneering technology in the industrial sector. It has 250 billion parameters that are adjustable during training to generate outputs or make predictions. The AI was trained using seven trillion data points, collecting more than 90 years of company history.
Amin H Nasser, CEO of Saudi Aramco, said the AI model would analyse drilling plans, geological data, historic drilling time and costs as well as recommend the most ideal well options. He added that for the company’s downstream business, “metabrain will have the capability to provide precise forecasts for refined products, including pricing trends, market dynamics and geopolitical insights”.
Aramco plans to develop a version with 1 trillion parameters by the end of this year.
BRKZ Secures $8m in Series A Funding to Revolutionize the Building Materials Sector in MENA
Helping to connect construction businesses with suppliers of building materials, a pioneering B2B construction tech startup BRKZ that specializes in materials procurement for construction projects is announcing a $8 million investment to empower contractors to reach their full potential.
The funding round was co-led by 9900 and BECO Capital, with participation from Aramco’s Wa’ed Ventures, Knollwood Investment Advisory, RZM Investment and MISY Ventures. With this series A funding round, BRKZ has now raised $13.55m in total. BRKZ’s seed round ($5.55m) was led by Better Tomorrow Ventures, with participation from Class 5 Global, Knollwood Investment Advisory, Plus VC, and several other strategic Saudi angel investors.
Nokia Bell Labs and Aramco announce R&D collaboration to support priority industries
Nokia’s research arm, Nokia Bell Labs and Aramco, the world’s largest energy company, have signed a non-binding R&D collaboration agreement to support Industry 4.0/4IR digital use-case creation and proof of concept development for priority industrial sectors in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and beyond.
Building on the vision of the recently launched Aramco Digital Company, this Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is envisioned to accelerate digital transformation within the Kingdom, the Middle East, and North Africa (MENA) region and globally. The collaboration seeks to leverage cutting-edge research and technologies from both companies to advance digital use-cases for a diverse range of industries, including oil and gas, utilities, mining, manufacturing and logistics.
Mighty Buildings raises $52 million in funding
Mighty Buildings, a leader in 3D printing construction technology known for its prefabricated, environmentally-friendly, and climate-resilient homes, has raised $52 million in funding – demonstrating strong investor confidence in Mighty Buildings’ innovative offsite 3D printing construction technology. The round was co-led by Wa’ed Ventures, the $500 million innovation-focused venture capital fund backed by Saudi Aramco, and by BOLD Capital Partners, a US disruption and transformation-focused venture firm.
The funding is earmarked to accelerate development and scale production of new homes for the US market, where new home demand continues to increase, as well as to establish manufacturing operations in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two of the largest and fastest growing construction markets in the world. The addition of operations in the Gulf region aligns with Mighty Buildings’ strategy to transform housing construction while addressing sustainability, climate resilience, and the global housing shortage.
Boston Metal Closes $262M Series C Funding Round to Decarbonize Steelmaking and Disrupt the Metals Industry
Boston Metal, a global metals technology solutions company, today announced the close of its Series C fundraising, bringing the series total to $262 million. New investors include Aramco Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of Aramco; global investment manager M&G Investments; natural resource investment firm Goehring & Rozencwajg; and investment management firm Baillie Gifford. Existing investor Breakthrough Energy Ventures also joined the round, and several others made additional investments in the Series C, including Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, BHP Ventures and Prelude Ventures.
The metals and mining sectors are under significant pressure to shift to more sustainable production methods while enhancing efficiency and profitability. Boston Metal is developing a scalable technology platform that uses electricity to produce a variety of metals and alloys from a wide range of feedstocks. The company’s Molten Oxide Electrolysis process is simpler, more energy efficient and has a lower environmental impact than traditional methods. With its high-value metals business, Boston Metal is empowering mining companies to create new revenue streams by deploying MOE to extract high-value metals from complex, low-concentration materials that are currently considered waste.
Rondo Energy Secures $60 Million from Global Giants and Leading Climate Investors to Speed Industrial Decarbonization
Rondo Energy, a leading provider of zero-carbon industrial heat and power, has raised $60 million in a new financing planned to speed the rollout of Rondo Heat Batteries (RHBs) worldwide and to transform the global energy storage market. Rio Tinto, Aramco Ventures, SABIC, SCG, TITAN, and SEEIT have joined Rondo’s Strategic Investor Advisory Board (SIAB).
SoftBank-backed Chinese robot maker, JAKA, to build plant in Toyota's backyard
JAKA is one of a number of companies looking to challenge Denmark-based Universal Robots’s lead in collaborative robots, also called co-robots, which play a complementary role to the hulking machines on automated assembly lines. Other contenders include Japan’s Fanuc and Chinese startup Elite Robot. JAKA’s advantage comes from the size of its home market, as well as its track record as a Toyota supplier. The company’s mean time between failure is 80,000 hours, the equivalent of one incident every nine years or so.
JAKA now makes all of its robots in Changzhou, China, at a factory with an annual capacity of about 10,000 units. For JAKA, the Nagoya plant is not only about serving Japanese buyers. In preparation for the expansion, JAKA Robotics raised a total of 1 billion yuan ($148 million) from investors including SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Prosperity7 Ventures, a fund under Saudi Aramco.
Aramco and Cognite join forces in new data venture
Aramco and Cognite, a global leader in industrial software, have launched CNTXT, a joint venture based in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Headquartered in Riyadh, CNTXT aims to support the Kingdom’s industrial digitalization, and the wider MENA region.
CNTXT will provide digital transformation services enabled by advanced cloud solutions and leading industrial software. These solutions and services aim to help public and private sector companies to future-proof their data infrastructure, increase revenue, cut costs and reduce risks while enhancing operational sustainability and security. CNTXT is Google Cloud’s reseller for cloud solutions in the Kingdom and the exclusive reseller of Cognite Data Fusion in MENA region. Additionally, Google Cloud is expected to launch a “Center of Excellence” later this year to provide training to developers and business leaders in how to use cloud technologies.
Five companies make a quarter of world’s single use plastics
The top 5 companies created roughly 26 million metric tones of plastic waste fueled by demand of the United States and China.
Seeq Announces $50 million Series C Funding Round led by Insight Partners
Seeq Corporation, a leader in manufacturing and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) advanced analytics software, announced today it has closed a $50 million Series C funding round, led by global venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners. The round includes participation from existing investors Altira Group, Chevron Technology Ventures, Cisco Investments, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, and Second Avenue Partners. This round brings Seeq’s total funding since inception to approximately $115 million.
Seeq’s rapid growth is being fueled in part by its partnerships and commitment to cloud-based computing. Seeq is available in the AWS Marketplace and is an AWS Industrial Competency Partner. On Azure, Seeq has been available in the Azure Marketplace since 2019 and was recently recognized as a 2020 Microsoft Energy Partner of the Year Finalist. In addition to cloud partnerships, Seeq connects to an extensive set of automation vendor data storage platforms for on premise engagements including OSIsoft, Siemens, GE, Honeywell, Emerson Automation Solutions, Inductive Automation, AVEVA, AspenTech, Yokogawa, and others.