Shell Enrolls Thousands in Online Artificial-Intelligence Training
February 13 2020 - 3:06PM
Dow Jones News
By Sara Castellanos
Royal Dutch Shell PLC is expanding an online program that
teaches its employees artificial-intelligence skills, part of an
effort to cut costs, improve business processes and generate
revenue.
The Anglo-Dutch oil company, which has about 82,000 employees,
said about 2,000 have signed up to take AI courses through
online-education company Udacity Inc. They include petroleum
engineers, chemists and geophysicists, among others.
The courses are voluntary, not required, and employees can
complete them at their own pace during work hours, Shell said. The
oil company covers the cost of the training.
Shell has a broader strategy to embed AI across its operations,
a move that has helped the oil giant lower costs and avoid
downtime. Other oil-and-gas companies that have tapped AI to
improve operations and reduce costs include Exxon Mobil Corp., BP
PLC and Chevron Corp.
"Artificial intelligence enables us to process the vast quantity
of data across our businesses to generate new insights which can
keep us ahead of the competition," said Yuri Sebregts, Shell's
chief technology officer, in an email.
The initiative at Shell expands a 2019 yearlong pilot program
with Udacity, based in Mountain View, Calif., that included about
250 Shell data scientists and software engineers. They picked up AI
skills such as reinforcement learning, a type of machine learning
where algorithms learn the correct way to perform an action based
on trial-and-error and observations.
Shell employees could use AI expertise, for example, to better
predict equipment failures and automatically identify areas within
a facility to reduce carbon emissions, said Dan Jeavons, Shell's
general manager of data science. Machine-learning algorithms could
also help Shell better process seismic data, or data about
geological rock formations underground, which could ultimately
speed up the time it takes to assess decisions about where to
drill, he said.
"Technology is moving so quickly that if you're not continually
training your people, you're going to get out of date," Mr. Jeavons
said.
The company declined to disclose how much money it is spending
on training, but Mr. Jeavons said it is a "material and strategic
investment."
Businesses pay for Udacity courses under an annual software
licensing model. Prices depend on the length and customization of
the course. The classes that Shell employees are pursuing, dubbed
"nanodegrees," cost $400 month on average when they are purchased
by individual consumers, said Udacity Chief Executive Gabe
Dalporto. The company declined to disclose its enterprise price
structure.
Udacity's courses for corporate employees are expected to be its
largest business this year, Mr. Dalporto said, adding that
enterprise interest in Udacity's AI courses has "exploded" over the
past two years. Other enterprise clients include Airbus SE, Ford
Motor Co. and AT&T Inc.
"Any Fortune 500 company is realizing that AI is going to be
disruptive, " said Sebastian Thrun, Udacity's founder, president
and executive chairman. Mr. Thrun also is the founder of Alphabet
Inc.'s research arm X and Google's self-driving efforts.
Shell employees can sign up for nanodegrees in subfields of
artificial intelligence such as reinforcement learning, computer
vision, data analysis and natural language processing, in which
algorithms are used to extract meaning from users' requests. The
courses are project-based and can last as long as six months.
People who have completed the courses can list themselves as
"Udacity nanodegree alumni" on professional networking site
LinkedIn.
The educational initiative comes as Shell works to transform
itself into a lower-carbon business while facing difficult market
conditions. Shell has said it expects oil and gas to remain its
core business, but it aims to be the world's largest electric power
company by the early 2030s.
Write to Sara Castellanos at sara.castellanos@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 13, 2020 14:51 ET (19:51 GMT)
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