As the global energy transition accelerates, a quiet technological revolution is unfolding in one of the world’s most entrenched sectors: fossil fuels. At the forefront is London-based Applied Computing, which has just raised £9 million in seed funding, marking the largest AI seed round ever for a UK company.
To put this into perspective: the average UK seed round for AI startups in 2024 was under £2 million. The scale of Applied Computing’s raise reflects a surge in investor confidence that energy innovation doesn’t stop at renewables — it must include the infrastructure that still powers the world.
The £9 million raise was led by Stride.VC with participation from Repeat.vc and comes at a moment when demand is “through the roof,” according to the company. With plans to expand across the US, India, Europe, and the Middle East, Applied Computing is racing to keep up with industrial demand for its technology.
Why refineries still matter
Every oil refinery supports infrastructure for up to 18 million people, touching sectors from transportation and agriculture to pharmaceuticals and manufacturing. Despite the push toward renewables, fossil fuels still supply over 80% of global energy, and many of the world’s 800+ refineries are decades old and riddled with inefficiencies.
The transition to clean energy is essential, but also expensive. Current projections estimate a $110 trillion global investment over the next 30 years, with slowing growth. A total overhaul isn’t realistic in the near term. Applied Computing proposes a more immediate and pragmatic solution: upgrade what already exists — intelligently.
Applied Computing’s approach is straightforward: don’t rip and replace — upgrade intelligently. Their flagship product, Orbital, is a next-generation AI system explicitly designed for the oil, gas, and petrochemical sectors. Unlike traditional systems that analyse only a small sample of available data, Orbital processes 100% of real-time operational data directly on-site.
This unique feature and its on-edge architecture are crucial for remote, security-conscious industrial environments. They enable high-performance analytics without reliance on the cloud, thereby reducing latency and data risk.
“Orbital is not just one model,” the company explains exclusively to TFN. It’s a federation of foundation models spanning chemistry, time series forecasting, language, and physics, all working together on-edge to deliver insights in real time.” This multi-model architecture is unique in industrial AI, enabling Orbital to optimise complex processes such as catalytic cracking, distillation, and emissions control with greater accuracy and transparency.
That multi-model approach is groundbreaking in industrial AI, enabling Orbital to optimise complex processes like catalytic cracking, distillation, and emissions control with unprecedented accuracy and transparency.
Orbital has already demonstrated exceptional results in live deployments. It has shown up to 75% cost savings compared to cloud-based platforms, a payback period under 10 weeks, and a 90% improvement over previous benchmarks in key operational metrics. These results are compared to the 12-24 months it typically takes for traditional digital transformation projects in refineries to break even, making Orbital’s rapid ROI a significant advantage.
From ICU to industrial giants
Applied Computing’s founding story is as unconventional as its technology. Dr. Sam Tukra (Chief AI Officer) previously developed AI to predict organ failure in intensive care units, through his startup Third Eye Intelligence — technology later gifted to the Imperial NHS Trust.
He met CEO Callum Adamson through an entrepreneur mentorship programme at Imperial College London. Both saw a glaring opportunity: if AI could save lives in hospitals, it could also revitalise the machinery of global industry.
“Refining is where complexity, scale, and impact converge. It’s not just hard — it’s the apex of validation. If you can build intelligence that works here, it will work anywhere,” said Adamson.
Fred Destin, founder of Stride.VC, sees the company as a flagbearer for responsible AI: “Beyond the LLM hype, companies like Applied Computing are reimagining how our most critical industries operate. They’re showing how frontier AI can be harnessed to drive real-world change — economically and environmentally — and they’re doing it with extraordinary velocity.”
For Tukra, the mission is clear-eyed and urgent: “There’s a comforting fiction that we can simply replace the old with the new. But the infrastructure of heavy industry can’t be erased overnight — it must be transformed. Without it, life as we know it simply stops. Orbital is helping the energy sector evolve, and in doing so, creating a smarter, more sustainable future.”
What’s next for Applied Computing?
While oil, gas, and petrochemicals remain the immediate focus, Applied Computing plans to expand into adjacent sectors, including ammonia, hydrogen, and speciality chemicals — all of which face similar operational and environmental challenges.
“Oil, gas, and petrochemicals are trillion-dollar industries,” the company notes. “But our tech can optimise any chemical production process. This is just the beginning.”
As policymakers, investors, and industrial giants grapple with the scale and urgency of the energy transition, one thing is clear: superintelligence is already reshaping the world’s energy infrastructure.
