Andrey Bolshakov, co-founder of NVI Options, discusses how his firm is remodeling security practices within the oil and gasoline trade by AI-powered digital supervision programs. He additionally shares his insights into the variations in AI adoption throughout Asia and Europe.
Andrey, to begin, are you able to inform us about NVI Options and your function within the firm?
At NVI Options, we offer AI-based digital supervision providers. Our shoppers are main firms managing essential infrastructure, equivalent to oil refineries and gasoline manufacturing amenities. These amenities home advanced and expensive property, which are sometimes serviced by numerous subcontractors. Sadly, these subcontractors don’t at all times adhere to operational rules, generally bypassing technological protocols or necessary procedures. This may end up in tools injury and even employee fatalities. Our options are designed to stop such outcomes.
NVI Options assists our shoppers in imposing regulatory compliance. We digitize technical tips and create operational situations for our software program. We then set up programs comprising good cameras and numerous alert mechanisms on the amenities. These programs combine with the power’s infrastructure to obtain telemetry—an unbiased stream of technological knowledge that helps determine ongoing operations.
Utilizing the telemetry and predefined situations, our software program evaluates elements such because the variety of personnel, their apparel, actions, and the situation of kit. If there’s a essential deviation from the rules, our system indicators that the operation is continuing incorrectly. As an example, if a contractor guarantees to ship 100 employees however solely 30 arrive, or if smoke seems on-site resulting from employee negligence, our system detects and flags these points in actual time.
The alert system operates on three ranges:
- On-site alerts: Staff are notified by way of loudspeakers of their native language.
- Supervisor notifications: Supervisors and administration obtain fast alerts in regards to the violation.
- Escalation: Additional actions are taken, relying on the severity of the scenario.
This multi-tiered signaling system ensures fast, efficient responses to potential hazards or operational lapses, enhancing security and regulatory compliance throughout advanced industrial websites.
I’ve at all times been captivated with creating programs that assist folks. Our core mission—saving employees’ lives—is deeply private and motivating for me. About 4–5 years in the past, I met my future enterprise associate, Philipp, who’s now the CEO of NVI Options. Philipp had in depth expertise in gross sales throughout the oil and gasoline trade and understood which investments had been value pursuing and the important thing challenges on this sector. Combining my experience in know-how and product administration together with his information of gross sales and economics, we based NVI Options.
At NVI, I’ve been liable for product technique from the start—defining the product’s options, making certain it helps the fitting applied sciences, suits inside funds constraints, and aligns with long-term financial targets. Along with technique, I oversee the technological features of the product, together with enhancing monitoring programs, including supplementary tools, and integrating new applied sciences. Philipp handles gross sales and consumer relations.
These duties are significantly difficult as a result of we function in high-tech environments the place hundreds of operations happen, and even minor errors will be extraordinarily expensive. Our software program and tools should work seamlessly with the AI to make sure dependable efficiency.
You participated in ADIPEC 2024 earlier this November. What key concepts and applied sciences did your organization current on the exhibition?
ADIPEC is among the largest world exhibitions centered on oil and gasoline applied sciences. Whereas I’ve attended it a number of occasions as a customer, this 12 months marked our first time presenting our options. Beforehand, we participated in worldwide IT exhibitions like GITEX and InterSEC. Nonetheless, ADIPEC immediately aligns with the trade we function in, so we had been excited to showcase our product there.
The suggestions we obtained was overwhelmingly optimistic. Many firms are more and more prioritizing the protection of their workers and technological processes. A rising quantity are both growing or in search of to amass programs like ours, recognizing the huge potential of automation. On-site supervisors typically can not monitor all operations successfully—once they go to, employees may adjust to rules and put on uniforms, however as soon as the supervisors depart, the scenario turns into unsure. AI, alternatively, can constantly analyze operations 24/7 and flag any violations.
We observed important curiosity in our product, particularly from a few of the world’s largest firms, equivalent to ADNOC, the main oil producer within the UAE, and Saudi Aramco, the nationwide oil firm of Saudi Arabia. We had in-depth discussions with these and different key gamers, outlining potential subsequent steps for collaboration. With some, we even signed memorandums of understanding to formalize future partnerships.
Furthermore, we’ve already initiated pilot initiatives at a number of Saudi Arabian oil refineries and within the ports of UAE. In UAE, we’re additionally exploring alternatives to implement our options within the safety providers sector.
What units us aside is our willingness to tackle difficult environments. In contrast to many startups that function comfortably from enterprise heart workplaces, providing their merchandise remotely, we’re able to go the additional mile—whether or not to the Arctic, scorching deserts, or different harsh situations—to implement and take a look at our programs on-site. This adaptability has turn into a defining energy of our firm.
Let’s speak extra about your options for the oil and gasoline trade. How do you help companies on this sector?
Even in industries like oil and gasoline, violations are frequent. As an example, employees generally skip security protocols to finish duties extra shortly. Contractors may ship unqualified personnel and stretch out work to earn extra money for the additional time spent. With out correct oversight, workers typically fail to observe rules, as this doesn’t appear to end in fast penalties. Nonetheless, over time, this results in incidents and monetary losses.
Our system helps decrease these points. On the identical time, it enhances work tradition and effectivity as a result of, unsurprisingly, when cameras are current on-site, workers are far much less more likely to break the principles. Our answer additionally strengthens subcontractor oversight, making certain they don’t attempt to reduce corners and that they ship the proper variety of folks as outlined within the contract.
What auxiliary improvements in video knowledge evaluation are driving worth in your shoppers within the banking, agricultural, and logistics sectors?
One promising space is Optical Character Recognition (OCR) know-how, which is designed to extract knowledge from standardized paperwork. These may embrace building documentation, work orders, and different kinds of paperwork which might be typically solely obtainable in bodily type, and generally handwritten. We are able to digitize and acknowledge these paperwork, remodeling them into multimedia paperwork that our AI programs can use for decision-making.
In banking and logistics, a major quantity of paperwork nonetheless exists in bodily type. Our instruments can shortly acknowledge these paperwork whereas concurrently verifying their authenticity. This drastically reduces operational prices, equivalent to these related to managing banking credit score workflows. AI additionally accelerates operations: as a substitute of ready for an operator to enter data from an bill into the system manually, paperwork will be shortly scanned and despatched on to the consumer.
We additionally see nice potential within the agricultural sector. Regardless of the excessive quantity of processes and human labor concerned, many duties are nonetheless not digitized. For instance, in agriculture, having an ERP system applied is taken into account a serious achievement. In areas with much less developed agricultural processes, common crop yields are sometimes half of what they’re in Europe, and I consider that enhanced oversight might enhance outcomes by 30-50%.
How do you see the way forward for video analytics integration in different enterprise segments? Are there industries you’re planning to enter?
My private fast focus is the agricultural sector. I see many similarities with the industries I’ve labored in earlier than, however the potential for digitalization in agriculture stays largely untapped. I’d leverage the experience from each of my firms — NVI Options and Megawatt — on this space. For instance, we might use cellular cameras mounted on unmanned automobiles to supply surveillance throughout giant areas.
Though the agricultural market doesn’t have as a lot concentrated capital because the oil and gasoline trade, it has an unlimited variety of gamers, which creates nice alternatives for development. Moreover, I’m extraordinarily enthusiastic about working with large-scale enterprise fashions that span hundreds of hectares. For me, this seems like an actual problem.
Inform us about your R&D heart and its key developments.
Our major gadgets are good cameras. The video-processing system is put in immediately on the positioning. That is fairly distinctive as a result of most firms add their knowledge to the cloud, however our websites are sometimes situated in distant areas the place there’s no web entry. Furthermore, we work with essential infrastructure, and shoppers choose to maintain their video streams inside safe, native programs slightly than sending them to the cloud. Subsequently, our R&D heart is concentrated on environment friendly real-time video stream processing. This must be executed shortly and inside probably the most safe surroundings attainable.
Moreover, we now have a really sturdy infrastructure for producing artificial datasets. When growing AI programs, we frequently face the problem of discovering sufficient knowledge to coach the fashions. Each incident is exclusive, and it’s unattainable to gather hundreds of crucial examples. That’s why we’ve developed an engine that permits us to simulate objects with photorealistic accuracy and “create” potential incidents with them. Basically, it’s a simulation just like a high-quality online game, which exhibits what occurs to an object and its folks earlier than an incident happens. Our developments on this space are distinctive.
What developments do you see rising in video analytics within the coming years?
I see a number of highly effective developments rising. The primary is analytics immediately throughout the cameras, often known as edge computing. Builders are realizing that there’s no have to ship knowledge to a knowledge heart; operations will be carried out on-site as a substitute.
The second pattern is extra advanced detections that intersect with programs like ChatGPT. This entails cameras or tools setups making an attempt to “understand” and “explain” what’s occurring at a web site, with out counting on commonplace situations.
There’s additionally an enormous push for programs to turn into extra complete. Increasingly sensors are being built-in, and this knowledge is fed right into a Knowledge Lake, creating huge quantities of knowledge that can be utilized to foretell quite a few incidents.
One other key growth is the creation of so-called digital twins for companies. Proper now, there are answers that some name digital twins, however primarily, they’re simply mirrors of the enterprise—visualizations of operations. A real digital twin replicates all objects and personnel, displaying all manufacturing knowledge, and permitting companies to investigate what’s going to occur to their operations over the following week, month, or 12 months. This knowledge can then inform strategic choices by administration programs, creating a capability to affect the bodily world. At the moment, there aren’t any instruments in the marketplace able to creating such complete digital twins.
What’s your private tackle the AI and digital twin developments?
I favor an evolutionary strategy. I really feel that in some areas of know-how, we’ve superior so quickly that we’re struggling to completely grasp the world we now reside in and what lies forward. I consider we have to perceive the dimensions of change a know-how will convey and, primarily based on that, introduce it whereas rigorously managing the related dangers.
That mentioned, there are completely different approaches to this situation. I encountered this firsthand about 5 years in the past after I was working concurrently with China and Western Europe. Purchasers in China had been able to implement our merchandise immediately, whereas in Europe, I needed to show that such programs would profit people with out intruding an excessive amount of into their private house. This displays basically completely different approaches to designing enterprise worth programs.
This distinction results in an fascinating story. On the identical time, Europe has applied many rules round synthetic intelligence, Asian international locations, particularly China, haven’t. Because of this, Chinese language firms have made much more progress, whereas Europe has fallen technologically behind by a long time. Now, Europeans face a selection: both they’ll isolate themselves inside their very own ecosystem or permit Chinese language companies to enter their markets, bringing completely different values and a culturally distinct financial framework.
