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What Sam Altman Said at ADIPEC About AI, Energy and Human Control
At ADIPEC on November 2, 2026, Sam Altman said people must remain in control of AI and argued the technology could transform energy economics. Altman described energy as a major challenge for AI and said more capable models could help with energy sector work.
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Key takeaways
- At ADIPEC on November 2, 2026, Sam Altman said people must remain in control of AI and argued the technology could transform energy economics.
- Altman described energy as a major challenge for AI and said more capable models could help with energy sector work.
- OpenAI’s UAE agreements included a partnership with ADNOC and G42 to deploy advanced AI capabilities across ADNOC’s operations.
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openai.comCreate a landscape editorial hero image for this Studio Global article: What did OpenAI CEO Sam Altman say at the November 2 opening of ADIPEC in Abu Dhabi, in his conversation with The National’s editor-in-chief. Article summary: At ADIPEC’s November 2, 2026 opening in Abu Dhabi, Sam Altman’s central message was that people must retain control of AI, while AI could transform the economics of energy and OpenAI was deepening its UAE partnerships. [. Topic tags: general, general web, user generated, news. Style: premium digital editorial illustration, source-backed research mood, clean composition, high detail, modern web publication hero. Use reference image context only for broad subject, composition, and topical grounding; do not copy the exact image. Avoid: logos, brand marks, copyrighted characters, real person likenesses, fake screenshots, UI text, readable text, watermarks, charts w
At ADIPEC’s opening in Abu Dhabi on November 2, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman made human control of AI his clearest principle. He also spoke about energy as a challenge for AI and its potential to change the economics of the energy sector, as OpenAI announced new UAE partnerships. 1
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Human control was the central message
In conversation with The National editor-in-chief Mina Al-Oraibi, Altman said there should be “no room for debate” about keeping people in control of AI. He said there “should not be a handoff to AI” and described the technology as a tool that should serve people. 1
Altman has also been quoted as saying that AI had moved from being “mostly not as smart as our smartest scientist” at the start of 2026 to being “mostly smarter than them.” He qualified the comparison as approximate, noting that AI’s capabilities are uneven. This is his assessment, not an independent measure of AI performance. 22
Energy: a constraint and a potential application
Altman identified energy as a major challenge for AI and said more capable models could help energy companies with areas such as new materials, turbine designs and operations. 35 He also predicted that AI “is going to transform the economics of the energy world.”
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The available reports support those broad points, but they do not substantiate the more specific claims that falling computing costs or lower energy use per query will necessarily increase overall demand. Nor do they verify a claim that 10,000 AI agents using an upcoming GPT model solved a Millennium Prize mathematics problem. That should not be treated as a confirmed result on the evidence provided.
OpenAI’s expanding UAE partnerships
ADNOC and G42 signed an agreement with OpenAI to deploy advanced AI capabilities across ADNOC’s operations. Reuters reported that ADNOC described itself as the first company in the energy sector to deploy OpenAI’s frontier technology. 30
Altman also met Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed. Agreements involving OpenAI and Abu Dhabi entities covered areas including government, investment, food safety and education, according to The National. 2 Bloomberg reported that OpenAI was seeking billions of dollars in funding from UAE state-backed investors; the report does not say that this funding had been secured.
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Taken together, Altman’s remarks and the announced deals linked two themes: AI should remain under human control, and its development and deployment will be closely tied to energy and large institutional partnerships. The supplied reporting does not confirm every claim about AI capabilities, safety incidents or the mathematics result.
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At ADIPEC on November 2, 2026, Sam Altman said people must remain in control of AI and argued the technology could transform energy economics.
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At ADIPEC on November 2, 2026, Sam Altman said people must remain in control of AI and argued the technology could transform energy economics. Altman described energy as a major challenge for AI and said more capable models could help with energy sector work.
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OpenAI’s UAE agreements included a partnership with ADNOC and G42 to deploy advanced AI capabilities across ADNOC’s operations.
Sources
thenationalnews.com‘No room for debate' over human control of AI, says Sam Altman
reuters.comAbu Dhabi's ADNOC, G42 sign deal with OpenAI as Sam Altman travels to UAE
bloomberg.comWatch OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Says AI Will Transform the Economics of Energy - Bloomberg
fourweekmba.comOpenAI CEO Says AI Passed Top Scientists in 2026, Roughly - FourWeekMBA