AI Impact Awards in Abu Dhabi: Cognite Honors ADNOC Gas and ADNOC Upstream — MyTechDailyNews Explainer

Most everyday tech feeds are ruled by phones, chips, and chatbots, so it is easy to miss applied AI when it shows up in a plant instead of an app store. In Abu Dhabi, Cognite announced the regional recipients of its AI Impact Awards, naming ADNOC Gas and ADNOC Upstream as honorees while representatives of both organizations sat alongside nearly 200 senior leaders drawn from energy, gas, and petrochemical organizations across the region. The session was the newest stop on Cognite’s 2026 Impact World Tour, a circuit that has already visited Houston, Oslo, Mumbai, and Tokyo and that keeps more events scheduled through the end of the year. Here is what the recognition says about where industrial technology is heading, and why it reads like a template for any company adopting AI.

What the recognition is actually measuring

The AI Impact Awards Program is built around three questions: is AI-driven innovation genuinely happening, is it producing operational excellence, and is the Cognite Industrial AI and Data Platform making asset-heavy operations safer, more sustainable, and profitable. Cognite presents regional winners during World Tour events because the agenda leans on real-world achievement in Industrial AI rather than concept work. In plain language, the awards celebrate systems that already run inside facilities and fields, not presentations describing a future pilot.

This year’s regional honorees side by side

This year’s winners in the EMEA region come from two different halves of the value chain, and comparing them is the fastest way to see the pattern the judges reward.

Winner	Award	What it recognizes	Why it matters beyond the industry
ADNOC Gas	Impact Award for Enterprise Scale	Continued development and scaling of its Industrial Data Intelligence (IDI) platform, strengthening access to contextualized operational data and supporting deployment of digital and AI-enabled solutions.	A working example of the unglamorous step that decides most AI projects: make trustworthy, contextualized data available to everyone first.
ADNOC Upstream	Impact Award for Innovation in Production Optimization	The AiPSO project, which turns multi-source operational signals into a single, contextualized data foundation to optimize production workflows and resource efficiency in real time.	Shows what unlocks once that foundation exists: many separate data feeds become one live picture that day-to-day decisions can run against.

Read together, the two honors describe a single sequence: build a shared data layer, then automate decisions on top of it.

A familiar list, stretched across industries

These winners join a distinguished group of past Impact Awards honorees that includes Cognite partners Microsoft, Radix, and Rockwell Automation, as well as Cognite customers Aker BP, Cosmo Energy, International Paper, SLB, and others. The spread matters for general readers: the same evaluation logic is being applied to software giants, energy producers, and paper manufacturers, which suggests the story is about a method rather than about one sector.

Two stage sessions, two transferable lessons

The World Tour agenda also put operating perspectives from organizations advancing Industrial AI in front of the audience:

• Borouge International – Ghalib Al Afifi, Senior Vice President, Global AI & Digital, shared how the global petrochemicals company is scaling AI across its global footprint through strategic partnerships and workforce capability building.
• ADNOC Offshore – Dr. Slahadin Al Ashair, Project Manager, Intelligent Operations Centre, discussed how its Digital Factory uses Cognite to power more than 11 AI-enabled digital twins through a Reality-Based Prescriptive Analytics (RB-PdsM) approach he helped pioneer.

Lesson one: scale comes from people and partnerships, not from a model alone. Lesson two: digital twins stop being curiosities when they are counted in double digits and wired into daily operations. A useful analogy for non-specialists is a live mirror of a physical asset; one mirror is a demonstration, while a wall of them, updated continuously, starts to behave like an operating system for decisions.

Why the Abu Dhabi stop also signals local commitment

The event did not appear out of nowhere. Last year, Cognite incorporated a dedicated UAE entity, establishing a local hub for expertise, technology, and customer support. That move reflects continued investment serving a growing customer base across the Middle East, and it arrives while the UAE positions itself as a global leader in applied AI. For anyone tracking where industry software vendors truly embed, a local entity and support team are harder signals than a launch announcement.

Quick-read checklist

• Where and when: Abu Dhabi, at the latest stop of the 2026 Impact World Tour, following Houston, Oslo, Mumbai, and Tokyo, with more events scheduled through the end of the year.
• Who was honored: ADNOC Gas, recipient of the Impact Award for Enterprise Scale, and ADNOC Upstream, recipient of the Impact Award for Innovation in Production Optimization.
• Who attended: representatives of the honorees plus nearly 200 senior leaders from energy, gas, and petrochemical organizations across the region.
• What earned the recognition: the Industrial Data Intelligence (IDI) platform and the AiPSO project, both positioned on the Cognite Industrial AI and Data Platform.
• Why the location matters: Last year, the company incorporated a dedicated UAE entity as a local hub for expertise, technology, and customer support for its growing customer base across the Middle East.

Common misconceptions

• Myth: an industrial AI prize is really a software demo contest. The AI Impact Awards Program centers on operational excellence and real-world achievement in Industrial AI. This year’s EMEA honorees were recognized for work already scaling inside operations.
• Myth: the technology by itself drives adoption. The Borouge International session, delivered by Ghalib Al Afifi, framed global scaling as a combination of strategic partnerships and workforce capability building.
• Myth: digital twins belong in research labs. The ADNOC Offshore Digital Factory runs more than 11 AI-enabled digital twins using the Reality-Based Prescriptive Analytics (RB-PdsM) approach described by Dr. Slahadin Al Ashair.
• Myth: a regional conference stop is a sideshow. The Abu Dhabi event sits inside a tour spanning Houston, Oslo, Mumbai, and Tokyo, and continues through the end of the year.

What general-interest tech readers can do next

1. Follow the remaining stops. With more events scheduled through the end of the year, the Impact World Tour is a compact way to watch which applied-AI use cases vendors and customers keep choosing to highlight.
2. Ask the data question first. Both honors — the Impact Award for Enterprise Scale and the Impact Award for Innovation in Production Optimization — reward access to contextualized operational data before they reward models.
3. Count deployments, not demos. When judging an AI platform claim, look for the number of live use cases, in the way the Abu Dhabi session pointed to more than 11 AI-enabled digital twins in production.
4. Read local presence as a commitment signal. A dedicated UAE entity and regional customer support say more about intent in the Middle East than any single headline.

FAQ

Who won the regional AI Impact Awards?

Cognite named ADNOC Gas and ADNOC Upstream as the regional recipients, revealing them at the latest stop of its 2026 Impact World Tour in Abu Dhabi.

What do the two awards cover?

ADNOC Gas received the Impact Award for Enterprise Scale for continued development and scaling of its Industrial Data Intelligence (IDI) platform. ADNOC Upstream received the Impact Award for Innovation in Production Optimization for the AiPSO project, which converts multi-source operational signals into one contextualized data foundation used to optimize production workflows and resource efficiency in real time.

Is this only an oil and gas story?

No. Past honorees include partners Microsoft, Radix, and Rockwell Automation, and customers Aker BP, Cosmo Energy, International Paper, and SLB, so the program reaches several asset-heavy industries within the EMEA region.

Why announce awards at a conference tour?

Cognite presents regional winners at World Tour events to anchor the agenda in real-world achievement in Industrial AI. The Abu Dhabi session placed the honorees in front of nearly 200 senior leaders from energy, gas, and petrochemical organizations across the region.

Does the Abu Dhabi stop imply deeper investment?

The event builds on continued investment in the region. Last year, the company incorporated a dedicated UAE entity, establishing a local hub for expertise, technology, and customer support.

For a broad tech audience, the point is not that two energy companies collected trophies. It is a preview of how applied AI is being judged almost everywhere: whoever makes operational data understandable first earns the automation, the efficiency gains, and the recognition afterward. MyTechDailyNews will keep following the tour as it moves toward its final events of the season.