The UAE is on a Mission to Become an AI Power

At an AI research lab on the edges of Abu Dhabi last year, an international team of 25 computer scientists were putting the finishing touches on a deep learning algorithm before sending it to be trained on 4,000 powerful computer chips. The AI system, which cost several million dollars to train, was funded by an arm of the Abu Dhabi government called the Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC).

Despite the government’s substantial investment, ATRC director Faisal Al Bannai decided to release the finished model online for free. If it was as good as the team believed, the boost to the United Arab Emirates’ reputation would be all the return the government needed on its investment, he reasoned. The plan worked. When the AI, named Falcon after the UAE’s national bird, was publicly released last September, it became a sensation. 

By some measures it was the best open-source large language model (LLM) available in the world at that point, outperforming top offerings from Meta and Google. Before Falcon’s release, “we were not on the map,” says Al Bannai. But “with 25 people, we did that. And it really created a surprise.”

Around the world, computer scientists took notice. “The UAE was not well known, before, for training models,” says Philipp Schmid, an AI researcher at the machine-learning platform Hugging Face based in Germany. “But then, by more or less the next day, we knew that they can train models, they open-source their models, they publish research around it, which benefits all.”

Falcon seemed to be the first sign of the UAE’s rapid rise in the world of AI. In this realm, the U.S. and China are the world’s undisputed heavyweights. But, sandwiched between the two superpowers, the United Arab Emirates is beginning to punch above its weight. 

The tiny Gulf nation of some 10 million, which appointed the world’s first AI minister in 2017, is betting big on the technology as an engine for diversifying its economy away from oil, and for projecting geopolitical influence beyond its borders. In recent months, some of Silicon Valley’s most powerful CEOs have visited the UAE, from Microsoft’s Satya Nadella to Nvidia’s Jensen Huang.

But while solidifying the Emirati government’s belief that it has what it takes to become an AI power, Falcon also made a larger point: if this powerful new technology is indeed to usher in a new world, it will be shaped by those with the greatest wealth and power in the one that currently exists.