UAE to become the AI capital of the world

The UAE Is on a Mission to Become an AI Power

In mid-April this year, Microsoft announced it would invest $1.5 billion in G42, a leading artificial intelligence (AI) firm in the UAE.

The deal is just one small part of the UAE’s mission to become a world leader in AI. As the world has seen in the past few years, the country has been pulling all stops to use the technology to help remold its economy away from oil.

The country was an early mover in the fledgling industry. In fact, it appointed the world’s first AI minister in 2017. Omar bin Sultan al-Olama was just 27 when he took on the role, accepting the task of turning the UAE into an AI powerhouse by 2031.

In his Abu Dhabi address last September 2023, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, said the UAE “has been talking about AI since before it was cool.”

Besides Altman, some of Silicon Valley’s tech moguls betting on AI have also recently visited the UAE. These include Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and xAI’s Elon Musk.

Another crucial component in the UAE’s AI ambitions is the creation of the AI investment firm MGX. The firm came into existence in March 2024. It was created by the Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technology Council (AIATC), which was established just a couple of months prior — in January 2024, to be more precise.

MGX’s mandate is to enable the advancement and deployment of cutting-edge technologies that will improve the lives of current and future generations. Unsurprisingly, one of the key areas MGX will focus on is the development and adoption of AI. Mubadala, one of the UAE’s largest sovereign funds, and G42 have been appointed as MGX’s foundational partners.

As it signed multi-billion dollar deals, the UAE has also created ripples in the AI world on the software front.

In May 2020, it created the Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), a government entity tasked with advanced research and development in all aspects of technology, including AI. In September 2023, the ATRC’s Technology Innovation Institute (TII) released the Falcon large language model (LLM), named after the UAE’s national bird.