Chinese bank, CICC, has recently joined major oil companies like Saudi Aramco, Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron in backing a South California based startup Maana, which is developing a machine learning technology specifically focused for the oil and gas sector.

The company uses artificial intelligence to help oil and gas companies consolidate and analyse data. As reported by the Financial Times, General Electric and Intel were also among the high profile investors in the company. CICC was the latest addition to Maana’s funding round as the company plans to expand into China with approximately $70 million supporting it.

So far, Maana has focused on using data to help the oil and gas companies increase their efficiency, speed and reliability of operations. The growing investments from blue chip companies clearly highlight the potential for Artificial Intelligence to help improve business operations and performance. Recently, the oil and gas industry has been generating vast volumes of data in areas such as seismic imaging for prospective resources to monitoring of infrastructure according to safety laws.

When speaking about Maana, Babur Ozden, the CEO and co founder, has stated that his company’s technology aims to act like “Google on steroids” for industrial customers by going through their data for insights on how to improve performance. “Companies are developing massive pools of data but they need help to extract value from it,” he said.

Maana is far from being the only company to receive backing from the oil and gas industry. In June, BP invested approximately $20 million in another California based startup, Beyond Limits, which has aimed to commercialise machine learning technology developed by NASA, the US space agency. The Series C Financing Round which raised $28 million ended on Tuesday and will enable the expansion of Maana into other sectors while aiding in establishment in China. Maana has successfully raised over $68 million since 2012. Existing Shareholders include the venture capitalist arms of companies like Intel, GE, Chevron, Saudi Aramco and Shell.

(Picture courtesy: Stephensonacademy.com)