BP Ventures, the oil major's venture-capital division, has invested US$5 million in an artificial intelligence firm in a bid to bolster its "digital capabilities" for oil and natural gas exploration. The oil and gas giant says it could save "several hundreds of millions" of euros a year with the use of artificial intelligence to boost oil-drilling efficiency. The UK-listed firm said it was using data to identify and exploit new fields and to squeeze more from existing sites. BP is exploring opportunities to apply machine learning and "cognitive computing" in its operations, with a focus on its upstream production, which centres around activities in "oil and natural gas exploration, field development and production". BP Ventures, set up in 2004, already invests about US$200 million a year in fledgeling tech enterprises in an attempt to keep track of innovations and the latest US$5 million will be spent at Belmont Technology, a three-year-old startup in Houston which has created tools to analyse geological information.