Energy behemoth Chevron has committed a staggering $1 billion to establish a Global Capability Centre (GCC) in Bengaluru. This ambitious project aims to make the Bengaluru facility the largest innovation hub outside the United States, according to Akshay Sahni, the incoming Country Head of Chevron India, during an interaction with The Economic Times.
The substantial investment will be spread over a span of 5-6 years and will be directed towards hiring a blend of experienced professionals and fresh graduates. Additionally, Chevron intends to collaborate with Indian vendors to facilitate the centre’s establishment and to develop cutting-edge technology solutions.
Dubbed the Chevron Engineering and Innovation Excellence Centre (ENGINE), the facility will be strategically located near Bellandur in Bengaluru. The centre is set to recruit approximately 600 professionals by the end of 2025, with plans to expand the workforce over time, Sahni revealed. Chevron already operates three advanced technology centres in Houston, Texas; Richmond, California; and Aberdeen, Scotland.
Discussing the strategic vision behind the India centre, Sahni stated, “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, especially one that is talent-rich like India and especially a city like Bangalore, we can standardise and centralise and streamline a lot of the work that is happening in different parts of the world.”
He elaborated on the broader impact, explaining, “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.”
Chevron ENGINE will play a pivotal role in addressing the global energy challenges of today while contributing to the development of a lower-carbon energy system for the future, Sahni added. The centre will support Chevron’s global operations and projects, including advanced tasks such as understanding the subsurface geology to identify optimal locations for carbon storage or sequestration.
“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,” Sahni explained.
The centre will harness artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to analyse vast amounts of geological and seismic data to determine the best sites for carbon storage. “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 digitise those plants so that one can study the operations using complex models, and we will also be monitoring the various processes of our operations.”
Moreover, the centre will focus on predictive maintenance by analysing data from manufacturing equipment, enabling the anticipation of equipment failures. “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.”
Highlighting Chevron’s innovative approach, Sahni mentioned, “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.”
Chevron’s ENGINE in Bengaluru is set to become a cornerstone of the company’s global innovation strategy, driving technological advancements and contributing to a sustainable energy future.
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