BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 29. Azerbaijan’s State
Oil Company (SOCAR) set out to digitalize one of its most strategic
industrial assets. With bold leadership, deep workforce upskilling,
and a rewired approach to digital and operations, SOCAR Carbamide
transformed performance—and earned global recognition as a World
Economic Forum Digital Lighthouse.


This is stated in the material of the international consulting
company McKinsey.


The publication notes that SOCAR recognized that long-term
competitiveness — for both the company and Azerbaijan —could not
rely on scaling hydrocarbon production alone, and that innovation
would be key to improving productivity. As part of its 2035
strategy, it made digital transformation a core pillar, looking to
modernize operations, strengthen non-oil industries, and build
world-class technical capabilities. “We were not simply installing
technology,” says SOCAR President Rovshan Najaf. “We built a new
operating model grounded in a systematic transformation
approach—one where data, AI, and people operate as a unified
ecosystem.”


Among many candidates, SOCAR Carbamide was selected to launch
the transformation. The plant produces ammonia and urea—critical
agricultural inputs—and is Azerbaijan’s only domestic fertilizer
producer.


McKinsey recalls that launched in 2019, the plant still had
untapped potential, and as geopolitical disruptions strained
agricultural supply chains, boosting local production of fertilizer
became urgent. In 2023, SOCAR and McKinsey launched a 2.5-year
transformation to increase output, improve gas efficiency, build
talent, and create a model for broader industrial impact.


In less than three years, SOCAR and McKinsey, with its AI arm
QuantumBlack, developed 42 in-house digital and AI solutions,
achieving significant financial and operational impact. Some of the
flagship solutions are showcased below. “We not only adopted the
most advanced industry solutions available but also built in-house
solutions on top of them to address the unique needs of plant
teams,” says SOCAR’s Chief Technology Officer Murad Abdullayev.


AI-based production variability optimization. To stabilize and
increase production, the team moved away from waiting for operators
to react to deviations and implemented a real-time variability
diagnostics and optimization engine that continuously monitors key
metrics and adjusts more than 150 control settings. Combined with
operational changes, this shift increased throughput by 21 percent
and reduced yield losses. AI copilot assists engineers by reviewing
approximately 20,000 equipment manuals and supports root cause
analyses—reducing unplanned maintenance by 66 percent.


Particular attention was paid to personnel training. The company
launched the SOCAR Digital Academy as a structured upskilling
program for frontline operators, engineers, and supervisors—and
paired it with a change program to make the new ways of working
stick. Within 2.5 years, approximately 70 percent of plant
employees gained new digital capabilities. The program generated
more than 40 AI-driven use cases—many proposed and implemented by
frontline teams themselves. “The Digital Academy gave people
confidence, and they stopped seeing digital as something external,”
says SOCAR Vice President of Human Capital and Inclusion Ziba
Mustafayeva. “With the successful adoption, we developed a
blueprint that can be scaled across our other sites.”







As core use cases matured and frontline capability grew, SOCAR
shifted its ambition from transforming a single plant to building
an enterprise-wide industrial AI capability. The company launched
the Caspian AI Institute—a regional hub dedicated to developing,
industrializing, and deploying AI solutions within the energy
industry. The institute now employs more than 60 AI and digital
professionals and has developed over 30 AI products and 15 AI
research patents, scaled across SOCAR. “By institutionalizing
talent, standards, and product development, we turned a plant-level
transformation into a national industrial capability—positioning
Azerbaijan to compete at the frontier of industrial AI,” says SOCAR
Chief Data Officer Azad Huseynov.


In January 2026, the World Economic Forum admitted SOCAR
Carbamide into the Global Lighthouse Network, which recognizes
manufacturing sites that achieve exceptional results by combining
advanced technologies with strong leadership, workforce
development, and measurable impact across productivity,
sustainability, resilience, and talent.


“To stay competitive, we had to rethink how plants operate—from
energy efficiency to decision-making speed,” says SOCAR Vice
President of Refining and Petrochemicals Anar Mammadov. “Digital
transformation was the lever that would move us from good
performance to global leadership as part of our overarching
strategy.”


For SOCAR, the recognition carried special weight. It marked the
first WEF Lighthouse in Azerbaijan and the wider Central Asia
region. SOCAR Carbamide also became the first urea fertilizer
facility globally to receive the designation.


Today, SOCAR Carbamide exports 90 percent of its production
across the region, supporting sustainable agriculture and food
security. The plant now covers 100 percent of domestic nitrogen
fertilizer demand and contributes significantly to Azerbaijan’s
non-oil export revenue.


For SOCAR, the Lighthouse designation marks more than a
milestone for one plant. It signals what Azerbaijan’s industrial
future can look like.


SOCAR Carbamide now stands not only as a fertilizer producer but
as a global industrial AI champion in its field—and proof that such
transformation can be delivered at home with local talent, strong
leadership, and global ambition.