AI, Expediting the Energy Transition

01/24/2025

How is the Company using artificial intelligence to drive the energy transition? What role does AI play in the solutions being developed by the Digital Factory? How can we tackle the challenges posed by AI and use it responsibly in our business operations? We get answers from Frédéric Gimenez, Chief Digital Officer and Digital Factory Managing Director, and Victor Martin, Head of the Paris-Saclay Digital Hub.

In what way is AI important for TotalEnergies?

Frédéric Gimenez / TotalEnergies is firmly committed to our strategy for the energy transition, with the goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050, together with society. Specifically, we’re leveraging new technology like artificial intelligence, which is playing a critical role in our digital transformation, because it lets us explore new frontiers and expand the boundaries of what our industry can do. In 2020, we created our Digital Factory, home to 300 experts in AI and digital tech. The idea behind the Digital Factory is to develop digital solutions so we can optimize our industrial operations, offer new services to our customers (particularly when it comes to managing their energy use), accelerate our processes and reduce our environmental impact.

Victor Martin / TotalEnergies has been using AI for many years in our exploration and production activities. Among other things, it’s helping us forecast and refine production at oil fields, improve our predictive maintenance and detect equipment anomalies. But on top of that, artificial intelligence is now a key part of our efforts to reduce our emissions, make our facilities more energy-efficient and develop renewable energies. For example, one way the Company is using the technology is to identify the best sites for solar and wind farms and anticipate exactly how much energy they can produce. Our engineers are also using digital simulation tools to find the optimal layout for wind turbines, to prevent production losses and overuse. Artificial intelligence is also a powerful tool for boosting creativity and productivity in the workforce. This year, TotalEnergies became one of the first companies to adopt Microsoft’s generative AI assistant to help our employees do their day-to-day tasks.

What are the major considerations to take into account when we use AI in activities like ours?

F. G. / We’re currently using AI recommendations to help us make decisions in complex environments. We don’t use fully standalone systems, so our expert teams always have the final say. Moreover, to create AI models, and machine learning models in particular, we need huge quantities of real-time data. Accessing that often far-flung data, some of which comes from our industrial systems in the field, is a major challenge that our teams are actively addressing. They’re preparing for the EU’s AI Act, which sets out requirements for traceability and reliability.

How do you take ownership of these technologies to anticipate their future uses within the Company?

V. M. / Our R&D teams work closely with partners in academia and industry to do just that. Through our partnership with the Hi! PARIS cluster, and our collaboration with the SINCLAIR lab (see insets below) we have access to a range of competencies and can run advanced research projects in this field. These partnerships help us to anticipate future AI uses and integrate these technologies into our industrial operations responsibly and efficiently.

Hi! PARIS

Hi! PARIS is a cross-disciplinary center specialized in artificial intelligence and data science, set up in 2020 by the Institut Polytechnique de Paris and HEC Paris business school. Its ambition is to become a world leader in research, education and innovation in artificial intelligence. It is supported by major multinationals including L’Oréal, Capgemini, Schneider Electric, KERING, Rexel, VINCI and TotalEnergies. It employs over 250 professors and researchers involved in cross-disciplinary, innovative research into AI and data science, formulating strategic outlooks for economic and public decision-makers in France and Europe.

The SINCLAIR lab

The SINCLAIR lab (Saclay INdustrial Collaborative Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence Research) is a shared industrial artificial intelligence lab set up by EDF, Thales and TotalEnergies at EDF’s Saclay site in 2020. Its purpose is to develop AI methods and tools to meet the three companies’ common needs, by examining specific use cases. The work carried out by the lab is mainly focused on AI’s explicability, which aims to make automatic systems that can explain their reasoning, a crucial factor in user confidence. Its other fields include reinforcement learning and AI-augmented simulation.

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