Bangladesh and Russia have an enormous potential for implementing joint projects in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).
Pavel Rastopshin, managing Director of ZYFRA, a Finnish-Russian AI and IIoT solutions firm, recently made the observation in an exclusive interview with Bangladesh Post.
Mentionable, ZYFRA is a globally reputed company for developing industrial digitalization technologies, improving the AI and IIoT environment. Key industries the company works for are engineering, metallurgy, mining, oil and gas, and the chemical industry, providing ready-made industrial solutions in the field of predictive analytics and data analysis, optimization of technological processes and monitoring of industrial equipment. Sharing his knowledge and experience in the sector, he said there is a good ‘scope of cooperation’ in these trendy technologies between the countries.
Commenting that Bangladesh is of great interest to global IIoT companies, he said, “Besides jointly participating in drilling wells for gas exploration, Russia is building Bangladesh’s first nuclear plant at Rooppur. Such projects require smarts solution like AI and IIoT and Russia is in a position to help Bangladesh in this regard. Moreover we see significant potential for introduction of AI and IIOT in industries like metallurgy, mining, chemicals as well as in oil and gas sectors.”
Rastopshin said intellectual solutions to mining that Bangladesh is using currently is on average 50 percent backward than the solutions offered by AI and IIOT. In the same way, intellectual solutions of AI and IIOT to industrial issues is 25 percent advanced than existing other solutions.
Citing example of the neighbouring country, he said, “India has undertaken a task to digitize all the value chains of mining using Artificial Intelligence, including drilling and blasting, an intelligent mine with unmanned vehicles, crushing and enriching minerals etc.”
“We are currently looking for reliable partners in Bangladesh to jointly promote Intelligent Mine complex that allows increase in utilization of haul trucks and excavators by up to 20-25 percent and drilling rigs up to 35 percent, besides reducing maintenance cost by 10-15 percent a year,” he added.
“Artificial Intelligence is emerging as a money saving solution to issues like climate change and improving efficiency in oil and gas sector. Global economic losses caused by climate change would be worth $3 trillion annually; and if no steps are taken to mitigate the situation right now,” he said, adding this prediction has been made by a global group of 415 investors having assets worth $32 trillion altogether.
“These investors in their combined statement have said that the gap between real emissions and levels required to keep global warming below 2 degrees must be closed by 2030.”
He also said AI can help reducing the emissions by around 20 percent. AI-driven solutions for heavy industries have proven to be effective in reduction of emission by 5-30 percent, depending on the type of industry.
He informed that the United States, Saudi Arabia and Russia together are responsible for 40 percent of global hydrocarbon production and carbon emission; and annual industrial losses due to wellbore instability is estimated to be more than $14 billion.
The AI expert said, “AI-based drilling optimisation solution increases oil production up to 20 percent and decreases non-productive time by 5-7 percent, besides cutting the losses up to 35 percent.”
“Some estimates show that more than 94percent of the wells globally will require artificial lifts at some point of time in their life cycle. The raw estimates show that AI solutions could save up to $5 trillion in global economy by 2030 by reducing carbon emission.”
“One of our solution MDC Plus is a real-time machine monitoring and manufacturing data collection (MDC) system with hundreds of customizable reports and charts that can be used to track jobs, parts, operations, work centers, Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), scrap, costs, downtime and people,” the AI expert claimed.
Observing that this crucial task is the initial step towards IIoT, he said, “Precise control of the implemented technological process will improve machine performance by 8-12 percent.”
“We are currently working with India, China, Chile, Peru, Singapore, Bulgaria and Romania,” he said in reply to a query, adding this year, or maybe the next, we hope to see first projects in this area, jointly implemented with Bangladesh.
