AI for Industry 2022: how a centralized Data and AI expertise serve TotalEnergies’ ambition
On Tuesday 20 September 2022, TotalEnergies Digital Factory had the opportunity to participate in the AI for Industry event organized by Startup Inside and Emerton Data at the Palais Brongniart in Paris.
During this day, several employees from TDF’s Data Studio were on hand to represent TotalEnergies within the exhibition, and show how AI and Data are contributing to the future of energy.
Among them, Michel Lutz, Chief Data Officer of TotalEnergies and Head of Data at TDF, was invited to give an overview of our achievements by participating in two highlights: a round table with Phillippe Rambach, Chief AI Officer at Schneider Electric about “AI for the energy transition”
and a conference where he presented the Data trends at TotalEnergies.
Given the strong expertise of our teams in making AI a vector for accelerating and transforming a company like TotalEnergies, these two speeches raised a lot of questions from the audience present at the show, particularly about the methods used internally to make the most of the data.
To clarify our working methods and try to better understand how data is a value in itself, which should be used in an efficient and responsible way, Michel Lutz answered some questions on the sidelines of the event. Theses answers have been published in AI for Industry’s white paper, of which you can read an extract below.
The TotalEnergies Digital Factory: a centralized Data and AI expertise center serving TotalEnergies’business and environmental ambitions.
TotalEnergies opened its Digital Factory in early 2020. Can you tell us more about it?
After the creation of our digital department in 2016, local data initiatives — within the Company’s branches — were developed. This was an opportunity to test, to build convictions around Data. We quickly saw the potential for value creation that it represented for the company, and we decided to invest more broadly in our Data transformation. The creation of the Digital Factory enabled us to pool our resources and create a significant digital strike force: today, it brings together nearly three hundred people dedicated to the creation of digital applications. The pooling of their technical and business expertise, coupled with TotalEnergies’ know-how in the field of energy, makes it possible to create high-impact applications for and with the Company’s businesses. (…)
What are the uses of data and AI within TotalEnergies? Are there any specificities related to the energy sector?
Data and AI expertise must be used to serve the Company’s strategy. The projects, at the Digital Factory or within the branches, are part of a business vision. TotalEnergies’ current ambition, as a player in the energy transition, is to reinvent energy production and consumption to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, together with society, and to solve the climate challenge. We are positioning ourselves in electricity, particularly from renewable sources, natural gas and green gas, and in the Company’s more traditional businesses, such as oil and biofuels. Our data projects are designed to help optimize energy-related operations across the entire value chain, from production to distribution.
There is a direct link between optimizing production and reducing CO2 emissions, so many of our projects are ultimately linked to environmental issues. Data allows us to better monitor and reduce the carbon impact of our historical industrial sites. Thanks to data science, we are also able to make more accurate predictions of the energy consumption of hydrocarbon processing sites. (…)
The rest of this interview can be found in the AI for Industry 2022 White Paper which you can download here. Thanks to StartupInside and Emerton Data for their invitation.
