About Antonio Pietri
Antonio Pietri, President and CEO of Aspen Technology, has stated that the company's software, historically used to drive efficiencies and profitability, is increasingly being applied to decarbonization efforts. He noted that the same technologies used to model hydrocarbons are now being used for renewables, hydrogen, and biofuels. Pietri said the company is commercializing a CO2 management technology acquired from Aramco and has developed an emissions management solution through an advisory group in the Middle East. He described AspenTech as "central to achieving Net Zero carbon emissions" and said customers have told the company it is "uniquely positioned" in this area.
Pietri has discussed the company's approach to artificial intelligence, stating that AspenTech integrates AI capabilities with "first principles of engineering" to provide guardrails for deployment in complex industrial assets. He said customers are becoming more discerning about the type of AI they deploy, differentiating between large language models and AI algorithms for specific use cases. Pietri also commented on the energy transition, saying that scaling technologies like hydrogen and biofuels will take time and that the focus through 2030 should be on driving efficiencies. He added that the company is monitoring quantum computing, which he described as "quite disruptive" once commercially available at scale.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Antonio Pietri's recent appearances.
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Transcript (9 segments)
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Narrator0:00
Company using AI to improve efficiencies to target issues and improve sustainability. Aspen Technologies was our mystery chart, climbing 34%, and will cut 5% of the workforce in the first quarter. Here is the CEO, Antonio Pietri.
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Antonio Pietri0:22
Hi, Kelly. Good afternoon.
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Kelly0:24
Thrilled to have you here. Give us a closer look on what's happening on the ground, and what would you say is primarily driving business right now?
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Antonio Pietri0:34
What we see, especially in the oil and gas refining and chemical sectors, is focused on continuing to drive efficiencies, but also managing their business to make it more sustainable, sort of managing through the energy transition. This is driving a greater focus on technologies and digitalization, including artificial intelligence capabilities.
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Kelly1:00
Do you think the impact of AI, the spend on it, is going to prove overhyped and it will go through a correction period or will it climb even higher?
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Antonio Pietri1:10
Kelly, in our case, we've been involved with artificial intelligence for 20 years, since the late '90s actually. We went through the AI winter in the late '90s. But since 2010, we've been introducing more AI capabilities into our products. It's not about a standalone AI application, it's about enhancing the accuracy and predictability of our products using these capabilities. We're seeing customers interested in this approach to AI, because in a way the first principles of engineering that exist in our products, the chemistry, the physics, the optimization, provides the guardrails for AI. And when you're deploying these capabilities in very complex assets to operate, you want to make sure that it's trusted, robust and provides those guardrails. So in that context, we're seeing customers becoming more discerning about the type of AI that they're willing to deploy in their organizations, differentiating between large language models versus AI algorithms that are driving specific use cases. So we continue to see increasing demand in these areas.
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Kelly2:30
This company was founded, to your point you've been around for decades. 1981 it was founded out of M.I.T. Headquarters. Our friend Julie Beale says she looks at smaller and mid caps, saying for those that missed out on the AI boom, your company is another way to play it with a track record to make oil and gas companies more efficient. That said, some of the analysts who -- shares are up by 5%, but the analyst community is concerned with writedowns in Russia and so forth. Can you tell us about the business prospects there in a time of tremendous uncertainty?
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Antonio Pietri3:06
I know now that we're going through a moment of economic uncertainty, and Russia had to do with us exiting the country after sanctions were imposed. But the last two years, we've integrated a couple of great businesses into Aspen Tech. We've transformed them and we've moved into utilities and transmission and distribution of electricity, managing and operating the grid. And a business around the subsurface simulation for oil and gas exploration and production. Now that we're through the integration and transformation of these two businesses, our side of the Russia business, we feel very excited that we're now poised to really start executing on our go-to-market strategy, to drive and create use of our technologies. Our customers are telling us that we're uniquely positioned, not only to help them drive efficiencies but to drive resiliency. For example, for our global refining customers, and we're the leaders in that market, we estimate that we create about $22 billion a year in value, incremental value. But also reduce the emissions by about 16 million metric tons per year.
