Honeywell Technologies has launched Forge Plant Cognition, an industrial AI platform built with NVIDIA AI and Dell Technologies infrastructure, with its first deployment at Dangote’s petroleum refinery in Lekki, Nigeria. Announced on October 26, 2026, the platform is designed to help refining, petrochemical, and liquefied natural gas operators get more value from existing assets, and Honeywell estimates it could deliver more than $60 million in gross operational benefit a year at the Lekki refinery at full capacity.
From Monitoring To Acting
Forge Plant Cognition is built on Honeywell’s recently launched Forge Cognition platform and combines process technology expertise, industrial automation, and AI. Unlike conventional AI tools that mainly analyse data and generate recommendations, Honeywell says the new platform moves beyond monitoring by combining real-time operating data, engineering knowledge, and its UOP process expertise with trusted calculations and physics-based models, translating insights into actions that improve outcomes.
“Industrial plants are among the most complex operating environments in the world, with enormous potential to realize greater performance and value using digital technologies and connected solutions,” said Rajesh Gattupalli, president of Honeywell Technologies UOP. “By collaborating with Dangote to launch Forge Plant Cognition, we are demonstrating how AI can help transform industrial operations, driving new levels of productivity, reliability and profitability at significant scale.”
Honeywell describes three areas where the platform is designed to deliver value. First, capturing hidden margin: identifying bottlenecks and optimising throughput, yield, and product value across interconnected processes. Second, protecting production: detecting emerging equipment and process issues, recommending corrective actions, and helping minimise unplanned downtime. Third, scaling industrial expertise: embedding specialised process knowledge into AI-powered workflows so operators and engineers can make faster, more consistent decisions.
The NVIDIA And Dell Stack Inside
The platform is powered by Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA and supported by Dell Services. NVIDIA Nemotron open models power agents that understand and interpret operational data, while NVIDIA Omniverse libraries help create a digital twin of the plant and its processes for simulation-based training and planning. NVIDIA Cosmos open models, with the Metropolis VSS Blueprint, enable vision AI agents for real-time alerts and anomaly detection, and the NVIDIA PhysicsNemo framework is used to build and fine-tune physics AI models for digital-twin-integrated plant optimisation. The applications run on NVIDIA RTX Pro 6000 and RTX Pro 4000 hardware.
That stack is the technical heart of the pitch. A digital twin lets engineers simulate changes before making them in a live plant, where a wrong move is expensive and dangerous, and physics-based models keep the AI’s recommendations grounded in how the plant actually behaves, rather than in statistical patterns alone.
Why Dangote Comes First
Dangote’s petroleum refinery in Lekki is one of the world’s largest single-train refineries, which makes it a demanding first deployment and a powerful reference customer. The refinery will integrate its operating data with Honeywell’s process expertise and AI-powered optimisation to identify constraints, accelerate troubleshooting, and support more informed decisions.
“We chose Honeywell Technologies’ Forge Plant Cognition because the platform can deliver unrivaled industrial expertise combined with differentiated AI capabilities to help us optimize performance, unlock greater value from our operations and evolve how we operate our assets,” said David Bird, chief executive and managing director of Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals. The investment, he said, reinforces Dangote’s commitment to operational excellence, advancing technology, and developing Nigerian talent to world-class standards.
The workforce angle is explicit. By embedding specialised process knowledge into AI-powered tools, the platform is meant to help engineers and operators access expert guidance and build technical capabilities. As Dangote expands its workforce, the tools will support its goal of a workforce that is 70 percent Nigerian, reducing reliance on external expertise over time.
The $60 Million Figure, With Caveats
The headline number needs its footnotes. Based on preliminary data, Honeywell estimates AI-enabled optimisation could deliver operational benefit of more than 29 cents a barrel at Lekki, which at full-capacity throughput would generate more than $60 million in gross benefit per year for that specific facility. The figure is calculated gross of implementation costs, is not guaranteed, and is specific to the facility, with actual results depending on configuration, operating conditions, crude slate, utilisation, data quality, and product margins.
Why It Matters
This matters because heavy industry is where AI’s value is hardest to prove and easiest to exaggerate, and a deployment at one of the world’s largest refineries is a serious test case. If Forge Plant Cognition can find hidden margin, prevent downtime, and transfer expert knowledge to a growing local workforce, it becomes a template for refineries, petrochemical plants, and LNG facilities worldwide. The partnership model also matters: NVIDIA supplies the AI stack, Dell the infrastructure, and Honeywell the process expertise, mirroring LG’s robot-data work with NVIDIA and new AI data-centre capacity in Chennai.
Background
Honeywell Technologies is a global automation company serving building, industrial, and process sectors. Its Forge Plant Cognition platform, announced October 26, 2026, with NVIDIA AI and Dell Technologies infrastructure, launches first at Dangote’s Lekki refinery in Nigeria, targeting higher throughput, fewer disruptions, and a more skilled local workforce, with a preliminary estimate of more than $60 million in annual gross benefit at full capacity.
Source: Honeywell announcement, Reuters report
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