UAE aims to establish itself as a global leader in AI innovation

The United Arab Emirates is known to many for its wealth and its architectural achievements - most notably the Burj Khalifa - standing at an astounding 2,722 feet, making it the tallest building in the world to date.

But as Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to grow and integrate further into every industry and aspect of society, from generative AI to AI-powered headshots, these will all require access to not only an ever-growing variety of AI resources, but the energy supply and resources to power it. As a result, the UAE is aiming to become a global leader in both the creation of and distribution of AI services worldwide.

Just this past year, the UAE, through a government funded venture known as the Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), a team of over 20 computer scientists, with the backing of government funding and the power of a few thousand computer chips, had created a new deep learning algorithm and large language model (LLM) named Falcon.

In a surprising twist, the head of the ATRC, Faisal Al Bannai, decided to release this new AI to the world as an open-source LLM, free of charge. This gamble seemingly paid off, as many have praised it as being the best open-source AI platform in the world, and it seemingly outperforms similar AI systems from both Meta and Google.

Prior to the release of Falcon, the UAE was considered nowhere near approaching a top AI contender. But now, as it continues to invest heavily in AI and related technology sectors, the UAE is quickly becoming a global leader in AI innovation, rapidly approaching the top two leaders, the United States and China.

Specifically, the UAE is in an ideal position to become a global leader in AI, primarily because it has an energy surplus from its vast oil production, in addition to solar and natural gas energy. So as other countries continue to struggle balancing their energy output with the ever-growing energy demands from the increased computing and scalability of AI, the UAE appears poised to have both the capacity and funding to quickly outgrow most, if not all other countries in the creation of new AI datacenters.

Just this past week, Emirati President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan met U.S. president Joe Biden in his first official trip to the United States, seeking to deepen the UAE’s economic and geopolitical ties.

Among these talks, AI was a top subject, with both the United States and China seemingly eager to make whatever deals they can to ensure their technological cooperation with the UAE. With investments in the U.S. already totaling $1 trillion USD, including in US real estate, infrastructure and technology, it’s no secret why the current and any future US. administrations would see it necessary to ensure the UAE’s full and future cooperation economically, especially in the realm of AI.

In fact, Microsoft, who has already plunged head-first into AI, with both its own Windows-based Copilot PCs, and its previous investments and partnerings with Sam Altman’s OpenAI, has already invested nearly $1.5 billion USD into the UAE’s burgeoning AI sector, specifically G42. So it’s no surprise that the American government wants good and lasting relations with the UAE, as it continues to outstrip many other countries’ AI and technological ventures.

In addition to the United States, China has also been seeking further technological ventures with the UAE, primarily through the UAE’s government-backed AI and cloud computing holding venture, G42.

However, in an effort to prevent China from keeping up with the progress of AI, the United States last year imposed new restrictions on chip exports on the UAE, to prevent new chip technologies from being exported from the UAE to Chinese businesses or AI ventures. Still though, even as the US has imposed these restrictions, the UAE continues to strive for both positive diplomatic and business relations with China, as investments from China’s technology sector could be just as valuable as the investments already made by the US government and US-based businesses, such as Microsoft.

Along with Microsoft, OpenAI is also poised to make and seek additional investments into the UAE’s growing AI sector. This past February, Sheik Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, brother of Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and national security advisor of the UAE, met with OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman, in a group meeting with other investors, as OpenAI is seeking up to $7 trillion USD in an effort to create an AI chip manufacturer that would compete directly with NVIDIA, another US company who is a leader in the AI chip market. Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan also controls the UAE’s main sovereign wealth fund.

It’s easy to see that over the next decade, AI will continue to grow, emerge and integrate in all manners of industry. Likewise, with its vast wealth, ample supply of energy resources and business and geopolitical relations, the UAE is poised to become the global leader of AI innovation.

Gulf Network