SLB Ltd has expanded its collaboration with NVIDIA to jointly develop AI infrastructure and models intended for large-scale deployment within the energy industry.

The two companies stated that the partnership will concentrate on modular data center design, the creation of "energy AI factories," and enhancing accelerated computing capabilities on SLB's digital platforms.

Under the agreement, SLB will serve as a modular design partner for NVIDIA's DGX AI factories, leveraging off-site manufacturing to improve reliability, reduce costs, and enable faster deployment and scaling of data center capacity.

The companies will also co-develop "energy AI factories." These will combine domain-specific generative AI models with industrial-scale agent-based AI to support energy companies in scaling AI applications across their business operations.

Furthermore, the collaboration will utilize NVIDIA's infrastructure to optimize the processing of large datasets and AI models across SLB's various platforms, aiming to boost performance and efficiency.

Demos Pafitis, Chief Technology Officer at SLB, commented, "The winners in AI will be those with the best data, the deepest domain expertise, and the ability to scale. By partnering with NVIDIA to advance modular data center construction and leveraging our domain expertise and digital platforms, we are helping the energy industry deploy AI at scale, transforming operational data into better-informed decisions."

Vladimir Troy, Vice President of AI Infrastructure at NVIDIA, added, "AI is becoming the engine of a new industrial revolution, and the energy industry is at the forefront of this transformation. Building AI factory infrastructure and domain models is critical to converting massive energy data into actionable insights and accelerating the creation of more efficient and sustainable energy systems."

This new initiative builds upon a foundation of cooperation between the two companies dating back to 2008, when NVIDIA's accelerated computing technology was first applied in SLB's subsurface visualization and seismic imaging software.

In 2024, the partners broadened the scope of their collaboration to integrate generative AI solutions into SLB's Delfi digital platform and Lumi data and AI platform.