SOCAR’s Carbamide plant in Sumgayit has been recognised by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as a Global Lighthouse site, marking Azerbaijan’s first inclusion in the Forum’s flagship Industry 4.0 network.
The site near Baku on the Caspian Sea is also the first facility in the country and the wider Central Asia region to join the Lighthouse Network, which highlights factories that have translated digital ambition into sustained, measurable industrial impact.
Launched in 2018, the WEF's Global Lighthouse Network identifies individual manufacturing sites that have embedded technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), advanced analytics, the Industrial Internet of Things, robotics and automation across daily operations.
Unlike pilot projects or innovation hubs, lighthouse sites must demonstrate verified gains in productivity, energy efficiency, emissions reduction and workforce upskilling under real-world conditions.
The Sumgayit plant’s selection comes amid growing concern at Davos this week, over the difficulty of scaling digital transformation, with WEF assessments showing that around 70% of companies fail to move beyond experimentation.
SOCAR Carbamide’s recognition reflects a systematic approach rather than isolated technology deployments. The plant says it has integrated AI-driven optimisation, advanced process control systems, real-time analytics and robotics across production, maintenance and energy management.
Company executives said the transformation has enabled the facility to operate above its original design capacity of 650,000 tonnes per year while reducing operating costs and natural gas consumption per tonne of urea produced, after initially operating well below capacity in its early years.
The award brings SOCAR’s total number of Digital Lighthouse distinctions to three, following earlier recognition for the Petkim Petrochemical Complex and the STAR Refinery in Türkiye, making it the only energy company globally to hold three such awards.
For Azerbaijan, the designation positions the country as an active contributor to global Industry 4.0 transformation at a time when efficiency, resilience and workforce capability are increasingly central to heavy industry.
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Israel has warned residents to leave a significant area in southern Lebanon, instructing them to move north of the Litani River as hostilities with the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah intensified on Wednesday.
A U.S. submarine strike sank an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka, leaving at least 80 dead, the country’s deputy foreign minister said. Meanwhile, Iran postponed the funeral of its late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, according to state media.
The election of Iran’s next supreme leader could provide an opportunity to end the ongoing regional war involving Israel, the U.S. and Iran, Türkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has said.
U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. military has enough stockpiled weapons to fight wars "forever"; in a social media post late on Monday. The remarks came hours before conflict in Iran and the Middle East entered its fourth day.
U.S. first lady, Melania Trump chaired a UN Security Council meeting on children and education in conflict on Monday (2 March), a move criticised by Iran as hypocritical following U.S. and Israeli strikes that triggered a UN warning about risks to children.
A torpedo from a U.S. submarine sunk an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka, U.S. Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth told reporters as the Iranian conflcit entered its fifth day on Wednesday.
The U.S. embassy in Riyadh was hit by two drones resulting in a limited fire and some material damage, the kingdom's defence ministry said in a post on X on Tuesday, citing an initial assessment.
Shahid Motahari Sub-Speciality Hospital in northern Tehran and parts of the Golestan Palace were bombed on day two of the U.S.‑Israel strikes. AnewZ Touraj Shiralilou is in Iran's capital city and said that the facility was flattened in an airstrike.
A U.S. submarine strike sank an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka, leaving at least 80 dead, the country’s deputy foreign minister said. Meanwhile, Iran postponed the funeral of its late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, according to state media.
The election of Iran’s next supreme leader could provide an opportunity to end the ongoing regional war involving Israel, the U.S. and Iran, Türkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has said.
The U.S. Department of Defense has released a video of a submarine strike on an Iranian warship off the southern Sri Lankan coast. At least 80 people died in the U.S. attack on the vessel, Sri Lanka's Deputy Foreign Minister said.
Rising tensions in the Middle East are beginning to affect Kazakhstan’s economy and citizens, disrupting grain trade across the Caspian Sea and prompting the evacuation of hundreds of Kazakh nationals from several countries in the region.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev highlighted the country’s expanding gas exports to Europe and its renewable energy ambitions during the Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council’s 12th Ministerial Meeting and the Green Energy Advisory Council’s 4th Ministerial Meeting in Baku on Tuesday (3 March).
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