Meet the British tech entrepreneur who wants to shake up the Gulf oil sector

Meet the British tech entrepreneur who wants to shake up the Gulf oil sector

A British entrepreneur is planning to bring robotics to the Gulf's oil refineries, saving companies billions of dollars in routine maintenance.

Ahmed Hadid, co-founder of artificial intelligence (AI) startup Hybird, already has oil giants ADNOC and Aramco on his books through a deal with global tech firm SAP.

The 27-year-old engineer says Hybird uses a combination of drones, laser scanners, DSL cameras and mobile phone data to save regional firms millions on costly turnaround programmes - where refineries are offline while plants are inspected and revamped.

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"It usually takes three years and thousands of people to inspect a plant. With our computer vision technology they can take a reality model of the asset before the turnaround, rather than trying to assimilate PDFs and drawings,“ Hadid told Arabian Business.

"When you look at brownfield sites