Chevron to Invest $1 Billion in New Tech Hub in Bengaluru, India

Chevron earmarks $1B for new tech hub in India (NYSE:CVX)

Chevron (NYSE:CVX) unveiled plans Wednesday to spend $1B to establish a new cutting-edge engineering and technology center in India, expected to be the company's largest innovation center outside the U.S. The Chevron (CVX) tech center, to be located in Bengaluru, will recruit 600 professionals by year-end 2025 and plans to add more positions over time, India country head Akshay Sahni told The Times of India. "Our focus will be on establishing digital labs, particularly in areas like artificial intelligence and neural networks," Sahni said in an interview. "We want to give employees here meaningful work that allows them to be part of solving the incredible challenge of providing affordable energy while building a lower carbon future," Sahni added. Chevron (CVX) already has three tech centers in Houston in Texas; Richmond, California; and Aberdeen, Scotland.

Energy Giant Chevron To Plough $1B Into India's Bengaluru Tech Centre, Add 600 jobs - Chevron (NYSE:CVX)

This story was originally published on the Benzinga India portal. United States-based energy powerhouse, Chevron CVX, has said it will inject $1 billion into the establishment of a technology center in the city of Bengaluru, India. What Happened: Chevron unveiled its blueprint to set up the Chevron Engineering and Innovation Excellence Center (ENGINE) in Bengaluru on August 20. The company said this move signifies a crucial landmark in its commitment to India and will hold a key role across Chevron's worldwide operations and projects. If you want to keep up with all the latest stock market updates in India, sign up for the Benzinga India weekly newsletter. The tech hub is projected to create around 600 jobs by 2025, with plans to expand further in the future. Chevron is also on the lookout for top-notch talent with specialized skills to back projects across its enterprise, spanning both engineering and digital services. This announcement comes at a juncture when global capability centers are gaining traction and are anticipated to contribute 3.5% to India's economic growth by 2030. Akshay Sahni, the soon-to-be country head at Chevron India, shared his enthusiasm about strengthening ties with India's vibrant tech community through its ENGINE center. Read Next: Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh To Visit US To Fortify Defence Relations Disclaimer: Artificial intelligence was used as a secondary aid in the writing of this story. Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Chevron to invest $1 billion in new tech hub in India - Times of India

BENGALURU: Chevron, the American energy giant, plans to invest $1 billion in a new cutting-edge engineering and technology centre in Bengaluru. The facility, dubbed the Chevron Engineering and Innovation Excellence centre or "The Engine," represents a milestone for the 145-year-old, $200-billion revenue company as it aims to develop affordable, reliable and cleaner energy solutions for the world."This is a unique commitment in Chevron's history to build a world-class technology hub that will help deliver the innovations needed for the global energy transition," Akshay Sahni, the incoming head of Chevron India, told TOI. "We want to give employees here meaningful work that allows them to be part of solving the incredible challenge of providing affordable energy while building a lower carbon future," Sahni added. Several of Chevron's global competitors, including Shell, BP, Saudi Aramco and Sabic already have technology/ digital centres in India. Shell, in particular, has made big investments here. Sahni, a mechanical engineer from Punjab Engineering College with a PhD from Stanford, brings a wealth of global experience, having worked for Chevron across the US, Kazakhstan, Venezuela, China, Thailand, and Bangladesh over the past 26 years. After telling his mother he'd return to India within two years when he first went to the US for graduate studies, he is finally making good on that promise by relocating to Bengaluru next month, albeit 24 years late. The billion-dollar investment will be spread over 5-6 years, with the company aiming to hire 600 employees across disciplines like mechanical, civil, petroleum and computer science by the end of 2025. Chevron is finalising a long-term lease for office space in Bellandur, the city's IT corridor, with temporary facilities already secured. The Engine will serve as a global solutions centre supporting Chevron's operations through cutting-edge work in digital technologies. "Our focus will be on establishing digital labs, particularly in areas like artificial intelligence and neural networks," Sahni said. The work at these labs will span a range of activities, from leveraging AI and machine learning to gain insights into subsurface geology-crucial for identifying prime locations for carbon storage and safer, more efficient drilling sites-to constructing digital twins of complex industrial facilities. These digital twins will play a key role in monitoring and optimising global operations, ultimately ensuring a more reliable supply chain. "Everything we do will be deeply rooted in AI, machine learning, high-performance computing, and robotics," Sahni emphasised. Robotics will also be a key focus area for The Engine. "We are already using robotics in various capacities, such as our four-legged robot 'Spot,' developed in collaboration with Boston Dynamics. This robot can navigate industrial sites, equipped with sensors and thermal cameras, to monitor equipment and identify potential issues before they become critical," Sahni said.

Energy company Chevron to set up $1 billion Bengaluru tech centre

Chevron Engineering and Innovation Excellence Center (ENGINE), to be located near Bellandur in Bengaluru, will also recruit approximately 600 professionals by 2025-end and plans to add more positions over time, Sahni added. The company already has three tech centres in Houston in Texas, Richmond in California and Aberdeen in Scotland.Energy giant Chevron has earmarked $1 billion to set up a global capability centre (GCC) in Bengaluru. The firm plans to make the Bengaluru facility the largest innovation centre outside of the US, said Akshay Sahni, incoming country head, Chevron India, in an interaction with ET. The earmarked amount will be invested over 5-6 years and in hiring not only lateral talent and freshers, but also in partnership with vendors in India who will help setting up the centre, as well as developing technology solutions. Chevron Engineering and Innovation Excellence Center (ENGINE), to be located near Bellandur in Bengaluru, will also recruit approximately 600 professionals by 2025-end and plans to add more positions over time, Sahni added. The company already has three tech centres in Houston in Texas, Richmond in California and Aberdeen in Scotland. Explaining the intent behind the India centre, he said, "Our strategic intent is not just cost savings. What we plan to achieve here is that when you bring work from different parts of the world in one location and especially one that is talent rich like India and especially a city like Bangalore, we can standardize and centralize and streamline a lot of the work that is happening in different parts of the world." "You can remove inefficiencies. You can remove repetitive work which has a much larger impact than just cost savings, because now you are able to apply standard solutions across multiple things that are happening. You can scale your technology solutions faster, so if work is happening in different locations, it's very difficult to apply digital solutions," he further explained. Chevron ENGINE will work on the challenge of meeting the global energy demands of today and building the lower carbon energy system of tomorrow, added Sahni. He explained that the India centre will be supporting Chevron's global operations and projects, and some of the company's high-end work like understanding the subsurface of the geology to find the best locations to store or sequester carbon. He added, "When you talk about carbon capture and sequestration, we will be looking at technology to find the best location subsurface geography, right? So, to find the best locations when you capture carbon dioxide from the air, you have to put it in the ground." He added AI techniques will also be used to find the best locations to store the carbon by analyzing copious volumes of geological or seismic data. "We will also be looking at building what we call digital twins of our complex processing facilities. So we have big manufacturing plants around the world and we will digitize those plants so that one can study the operations using complex models and we will also be monitoring the various processes of our operations." The centre will also work on data from manufacturing equipment so it can actually predict when they would fail. "If you have historical data and you can then predict when equipment failed, then you can actually do preventive maintenance. You can improve the reliability of supplies if you can predict when certain equipment can fail, and then we can use different types of robotic applications." "We have one of the applications that is a four-legged robotic dog that can actually move within large manufacturing facilities gathering information just like a human operator would do. The centre will also look at enhancing the capabilities of robotics."