First AI-themed café in Dubai soon

Jamil Khan, Senior Reporter

With its leadership and the strategy to be pioneers in technology use the UAE has been ranked top in the Middle East with respect to its readiness to be the number one nation in artificial intelligence.

The country started to embrace advanced technology and its purpose to employ this modern technology in order to upgrade its population quality of life and make them the happiest. All this is set to play a central role in the country’s Centennial 2071 project.

In this regard, Dubai will soon witness the opening of the first artificial intelligence themed café in the emirate and the world. The unique concept cafe is situated in Dubai Festival City and will open soon in August.

The unique café experience comes in line with His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai’s vision and aspirations to make the UAE the world’s artificial intelligence hub through a well-defined plan of ‘UAE Centennial 2071’.

Robocafé will be the first of its kind and the robots at the cafe can do it all – they will serve foods and drinks and take orders. These robots will follow fixed paths to deliver food and drink orders to customers while also performing light and musical customised shows.

The cafe will be equipped with three robots in the initial stages that aim to help familiarise the public with the technological revolution in automation and artificial intelligence.

Yasmin El Enazi, the Customer Happiness Manager at the company behind the first Robocafe, told the Gulf that “it is our pleasure to announce the opening of the first artificial intelligence themed café in Dubai and the world.

“The whole cafe will be fully autonomous. Customers can place their order through a tablet at the entrance, and leave it to the robot arms to serve your brew. In addition to serving coffee, they’re touted to perform musical and light shows too.” 

She further added “these are robots and cafe capacity is 60 persons maximum and this is enough to serve this number. There are future expansion plans to be announced later.”

She further pointed that this is not a scene from a science fiction but rather it is a new addition to Dubai’s hangouts for everyone mainly high tech geeks who seek a virtual taste of the future.