Andrey Bolshakov, co-founder of NVI Options, discusses how his firm is remodeling security practices within the oil and fuel business by AI-powered digital supervision methods. He additionally shares his insights into the variations in AI adoption throughout Asia and Europe.
Andrey, to start out, are you able to inform us about NVI Options and your position within the firm?
At NVI Options, we offer AI-based digital supervision companies. Our purchasers are main firms managing essential infrastructure, resembling oil refineries and fuel manufacturing services. These services home complicated and dear belongings, which are sometimes serviced by varied subcontractors. Sadly, these subcontractors don’t all the time adhere to operational rules, generally bypassing technological protocols or necessary procedures. This may end up in gear harm and even employee fatalities. Our options are designed to stop such outcomes.
NVI Options assists our purchasers in imposing regulatory compliance. We digitize technical pointers and create operational situations for our software program. We then set up methods comprising good cameras and varied alert mechanisms on the services. These methods combine with the ability’s infrastructure to obtain telemetry—an unbiased stream of technological information that helps establish 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 apparatus. If there’s a essential deviation from the rules, our system indicators that the operation is continuing incorrectly. As an illustration, if a contractor guarantees to ship 100 staff however solely 30 arrive, or if smoke seems on-site because of employee negligence, our system detects and flags these points in actual time.
The alert system operates on three ranges:
- On-site alerts: Employees are notified by way of loudspeakers of their native language.
- Supervisor notifications: Supervisors and administration obtain rapid alerts concerning the violation.
- Escalation: Additional actions are taken, relying on the severity of the state of affairs.
This multi-tiered signaling system ensures fast, efficient responses to potential hazards or operational lapses, bettering security and regulatory compliance throughout complicated industrial websites.
I’ve all the time been keen about creating methods that assist individuals. Our core mission—saving staff’ lives—is deeply private and motivating for me. About 4–5 years in the past, I met my future enterprise accomplice, Philipp, who’s now the CEO of NVI Options. Philipp had intensive expertise in gross sales inside the oil and fuel business and understood which investments have been price pursuing and the important thing challenges on this sector. Combining my experience in know-how and product administration along with his data 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 correct applied sciences, matches inside price range constraints, and aligns with long-term financial targets. Along with technique, I oversee the technological elements of the product, together with bettering monitoring methods, including supplementary gear, 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 1000’s of operations happen, and even minor errors may be extraordinarily pricey. Our software program and gear 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 without doubt one of the largest world exhibitions centered on oil and fuel applied sciences. Whereas I’ve attended it a number of instances as a customer, this yr marked our first time presenting our options. Beforehand, we participated in worldwide IT exhibitions like GITEX and InterSEC. Nonetheless, ADIPEC immediately aligns with the business we function in, so we have 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 searching for to amass methods like ours, recognizing the huge potential of automation. On-site supervisors usually can’t monitor all operations successfully—after they go to, staff would possibly adjust to rules and put on uniforms, however as soon as the supervisors go away, the state of affairs 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, resembling 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 companies sector.
What units us aside is our willingness to tackle difficult environments. Not like many startups that function comfortably from enterprise middle places of work, 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 methods on-site. This adaptability has change into a defining power of our firm.
Let’s speak extra about your options for the oil and fuel business. How do you help companies on this sector?
Even in industries like oil and fuel, violations are widespread. As an illustration, staff generally skip security protocols to finish duties extra shortly. Contractors would possibly ship unqualified personnel and stretch out work to earn extra money for the additional time spent. With out correct oversight, workers usually fail to observe rules, as this doesn’t appear to end in rapid penalties. Nonetheless, over time, this results in incidents and monetary losses.
Our system helps reduce these points. On the similar time, it enhances work tradition and effectivity as a result of, unsurprisingly, when cameras are current on-site, workers are far much less prone to break the foundations. Our resolution additionally strengthens subcontractor oversight, making certain they don’t attempt to reduce corners and that they ship the right variety of individuals as outlined within the contract.
What auxiliary improvements in video information evaluation are driving worth in your purchasers within the banking, agricultural, and logistics sectors?
One promising space is Optical Character Recognition (OCR) know-how, which is designed to extract information from standardized paperwork. These would possibly embody building documentation, work orders, and different varieties of paperwork which can be usually solely accessible in bodily kind, and generally handwritten. We will digitize and acknowledge these paperwork, remodeling them into multimedia paperwork that our AI methods can use for decision-making.
In banking and logistics, a big quantity of paperwork nonetheless exists in bodily kind. Our instruments can shortly acknowledge these paperwork whereas concurrently verifying their authenticity. This drastically reduces operational prices, resembling these related to managing banking credit score workflows. AI additionally hurries up operations: as a substitute of ready for an operator to enter info from an bill into the system manually, paperwork may 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 significant 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 rapid 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 cell cameras mounted on unmanned autos to supply surveillance throughout giant areas.
Though the agricultural market doesn’t have as a lot concentrated capital because the oil and fuel business, it has an enormous variety of gamers, which creates nice alternatives for progress. Moreover, I’m extraordinarily fascinated about working with large-scale enterprise fashions that span 1000’s of hectares. For me, this seems like an actual problem.
Inform us about your R&D middle and its key developments.
Our major gadgets are good cameras. The video-processing system is put in immediately on the location. That is fairly distinctive as a result of most firms add their information to the cloud, however our websites are sometimes positioned in distant areas the place there’s no web entry. Furthermore, we work with essential infrastructure, and purchasers favor to maintain their video streams inside safe, native methods relatively than sending them to the cloud. Due to this fact, our R&D middle is concentrated on environment friendly real-time video stream processing. This must be executed shortly and inside essentially the most safe surroundings potential.
Moreover, we have now a really sturdy infrastructure for producing artificial datasets. When growing AI methods, we frequently face the problem of discovering sufficient information to coach the fashions. Each incident is exclusive, and it’s inconceivable to gather 1000’s 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. Primarily, it’s a simulation just like a high-quality online game, which exhibits what occurs to an object and its individuals earlier than an incident happens. Our developments on this space are distinctive.
What traits do you see rising in video analytics within the coming years?
I see a number of highly effective traits rising. The primary is analytics immediately inside the cameras, also referred to as edge computing. Builders are realizing that there’s no must ship information to an information middle; operations may be carried out on-site as a substitute.
The second pattern is extra complicated detections that intersect with methods like ChatGPT. This includes cameras or gear setups making an attempt to “understand” and “explain” what’s taking place at a web site, with out counting on commonplace situations.
There’s additionally an enormous push for methods to change into extra complete. An increasing number of sensors are being built-in, and this information is fed right into a Information Lake, creating huge quantities of information that can be utilized to foretell quite a few incidents.
One other key improvement is the creation of so-called digital twins for companies. Proper now, there are answers that some name digital twins, however basically, they’re simply mirrors of the enterprise—visualizations of operations. A real digital twin replicates all objects and personnel, displaying all manufacturing information, and permitting companies to investigate what’s going to occur to their operations over the subsequent week, month, or yr. This information can then inform strategic selections by administration methods, creating a capability to affect the bodily world. Presently, there are not 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 method. I really feel that in some areas of know-how, we’ve superior so quickly that we’re struggling to totally grasp the world we now stay in and what lies forward. I consider we have to perceive the size of change a know-how will deliver and, primarily based on that, introduce it whereas rigorously managing the related dangers.
That stated, there are totally different approaches to this subject. I encountered this firsthand about 5 years in the past once I was working concurrently with China and Western Europe. Purchasers in China have been able to implement our merchandise straight away, whereas in Europe, I needed to show that such methods would profit people with out intruding an excessive amount of into their private area. This displays basically totally different approaches to designing enterprise worth methods.
This distinction results in an attention-grabbing story. On the similar time, Europe has applied many rules round synthetic intelligence, Asian nations, particularly China, haven’t. Consequently, Chinese language firms have made way more progress, whereas Europe has fallen technologically behind by many years. Now, Europeans face a selection: both they will isolate themselves inside their very own ecosystem or permit Chinese language companies to enter their markets, bringing totally different values and a culturally distinct financial framework.
