TotalEnergies and French artificial intelligence company Mistral have announced a three-year partnership involving more than €100 million ($116 million) to develop a new generation of AI models for oil and gas exploration and reservoir development.

The programme will combine Mistral’s AI capabilities with TotalEnergies’ decades of expertise in geosciences and reservoir engineering.

The companies said the initiative will focus on using advanced AI, including agentic AI, to process and interpret large volumes of subsurface data and support the company’s geoscience specialists.

The partnership will draw on nearly a century of TotalEnergies’ accumulated knowledge and expertise, alongside close to 10 petaflops of data.

The resulting AI models are expected to generate multiple scenarios for assessing exploration opportunities and help optimise and extend the operational life of existing oil and gas projects.

As part of the agreement, the companies will establish a joint scientific laboratory bringing together TotalEnergies’ subsurface teams and Mistral’s scientists and technology specialists.

The laboratory will focus on developing AI solutions tailored to TotalEnergies’ operational requirements.

The companies said the collaboration will support the development of proprietary AI models within a European digital ecosystem.

TotalEnergies expects the partnership to strengthen its broader AI solutions ecosystem while enabling Mistral to apply its technology to complex industrial applications.

The initiative comes as energy companies increasingly explore AI applications to analyse large and complex datasets, improve decision-making and enhance efficiency across exploration and production activities.

TotalEnergies said the partnership with Mistral will allow it to combine strategic subsurface data with advanced AI technologies, while strengthening cooperation with a European technology provider.

Mistral, meanwhile, will gain access to TotalEnergies’ extensive geoscience expertise and industrial data to support the development of specialised AI models.

The three-year programme represents a significant investment in the application of AI to subsurface analysis and is intended to create tools capable of supporting exploration, reservoir characterisation and the development of oil and gas assets.

“Exploration and reservoir engineering are among the areas where artificial intelligence can create the greatest value for our activities. By combining a century of geoscience data, the expertise of our teams and Mistral's capabilities, we aim to develop a new generation of tools capable of supporting our experts in analyzing the most complex data and in their decision-making. This partnership also illustrates our commitment to contributing to the development of a high-performing European digital ecosystem, supporting our competitiveness” said Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of TotalEnergies.

“We are delighted to take our collaboration with TotalEnergies to the next level. This project demonstrates the ability of our models to support complex industrial processes and adapt to the most demanding scientific and energy challenges. It also highlights the strength of Europe's industrial ecosystem and the importance for large enterprises of adopting state-of-the-art, customizable AI solutions that protect and respect their intellectual property,” said Arthur Mensch, Co-founder and CEO of Mistral. -OGN/TradeArabia News Service