UAE pushes artificial intelligence use in all government agencies

The UAE is amping up the use of artificial intelligence in all aspects of government.

Speaking at Dubai’s AI retreat 2025 on Sunday, Omar Al Olama, the UAE’s Minister of State for AI, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications, said all departments will be evaluated on the effectiveness of how they use the emerging technology, The National reports.

“We don’t want to leverage artificial intelligence just for the sake of AI,” Al Olama said. “We want to ensure that the application actually improves the quality of life of citizens in the UAE and in Dubai specifically.”

The minister spoke during the AI event’s opening session at Dubai’s Museum of the Future. The retreat brings together more than 1,000 AI experts, policymakers, and executives from companies including Microsoft, Meta, Google and IBM.

Among those participating in the week’s activities are Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Ruler of Dubai and UAE Prime Minister and Mohammad bin Abdullah Al Gergawi, UAE Minister of Cabinet Affairs and Managing Director of the Dubai Future Foundation.

Delegations from more than 100 countries have come to the city for a deep dive into AI technology.

Dubai Future Foundation’s Belhoul goes full speed ahead

As this week’s World Governments Summit was wrapping up in Dubai, Khalfan Belhoul’s head was buzzing with all things AI.

Having hosted TIME Magazine’s TIME100 AI Impact Awards Gala at the Museum of the Future on Monday night, Belhoul, CEO of the Dubai Future Foundation, followed it up on Tuesday by signing a partnership pact with IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna to bolster the use of artificial intelligence tools in the wealthy Gulf financial center.

IBM will also co-publish so-called white papers with the Dubai Future Foundation in April to coincide with the inaugural Dubai AI Week. Belhoul promised more “very interesting announcements” in the coming days that will be “an example for the world.”

As head of a foundation that runs a $300 million venture capital fund and built the city’s iconic Museum of the Future – a massive seven-story elliptical loop with a silvery translucent skin covered in Arabic calligraphy – Belhoul has a challenging mission.

Appointed eight years ago by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, the Ruler of Dubai and Vice President of the UAE, Belhoul was tasked to “imagine, inspire and design Dubai’s future.” To that end, the Boston University graduate with a master’s degree in e-commerce, assembled a team of scientists, researchers and startup investors to plot Dubai’s long-term roadmap.

“If we think that we will get it right every single time, then we will still not be a leading city of the future,” Belhoul told The Circuit. “Our platform has been built for us to pivot and to make mistakes.”

The interview was edited for length and clarity.

Why does Dubai need a special foundation to chart its future?

When the Dubai Future Foundation was set up – I’ll be very frank with you – we had no clue how to set it up. The idea was that we needed to institutionalize future foresight. Fast forward now, around eight to nine years since the formation, we have a foresight team, we have a think tank, and we have an execution team. I think this shows you the balance between staying up to speed when it comes to what’s happening in the future and of course, you know most of the trends – and the hope and the fear at the same time. Whether it’s climate, AI, mobility, you name it. But then, how can you take all that and create a platform that is for the betterment of humanity? This is what we do.

Critics say you’re a dreamer and that many of the DFF’s ideas are unlikely to ever be put into practice. Are they right?

if you look at our projects, you would see that many of them have seen light and become an example for the world. And what I would really say to those people is that if we think this way, we will never be a leading city of the future. If we think that we will get it right every single time, then we will still not be a leading city of the future. Our platform has been built for us to pivot and to make mistakes.

If you look at investors in venture capital and their portfolio of investments in technology, 80 percent of their portfolio goes bust. But it’s that one story that creates history for them that recovers the whole portfolio. So you can see us working in the same way, where we create a safe environment to test and fail – as long as no one gets hurt or injured or nothing serious happens. Then, we double down on the winning bets and set an example for the world.

Look ahead. How will the DFF look 20 years from now?

Very futuristic. Constantly evolving. Our entity should grow in importance – not because I’m part of it, but because having an entity that becomes a think tank for Dubai and for the UAE to share a view on where the future is evolving is always a need because the future will continue to evolve.

And the interesting – I wouldn’t say scary – part is that this evolution is happening at a much faster pace. If you look at the industrial revolutions and the change from one to the other, you realize that the gap between one revolution to the next is shrinking. You see that our phones are advancing dramatically year after year. Let alone the evolution of AI, quantum computing, and robotics. So you can only imagine where we’re heading.

Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and other parts of the region are both friendly neighbors and well-financed rivals. How do you address the competition?

One word: Synergy. Second word: Complementing each other. I think Dubai and the UAE – our population is not big enough for a company to scale. Neither is any other Arab country in the world. It’s the whole region that should benefit from this growth. Nowadays, when you set up a business on your phone, with one click of a button, the world becomes your market. So, how do you really connect that world together? Connect the Arab world to ensure that those businesses can scale in a seamless way. And that’s the vision – collaboration, inclusivity, unity – working with one another and creating a bigger impact.

Baidu’s Li tells Dubai summit AI costs pushing China to innovate

Inside Dubai’s luxurious Madinat Jumeirah resort at the World Governments Summit, some 6,000 participants were scrambling between hotel ballrooms on Tuesday to see a parade of government and corporate leaders talk about the future of the earth.

Another 1.5 million tuned in on the web feed. Topping the agenda in one session after another was how to address the promise and threats presented by artificial intelligence.

Robin Li, CEO of China’s Baidu talked about how the high costs of AI development have forced the world’s second-largest economy to find new computing solutions, including DeepSeek, which has come up with vastly cheaper AI models than those developed by OpenAI, Microsoft and Google.

“You just don’t know when and where innovations come from,” Li said in an onstage conversation with Omar Al Olama, UAE Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications.

Kristalina Georgieva, the Bulgarian economist who serves as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, said the world is at an important juncture that will determine whether AI turns into a great story or a nightmare. “There are many, many unknowns,” she sighed.

Adding a touch of glamor on Monday night was a star-studded event at the Museum of the Future, where many of the WGS delegates attended TIME magazine’s Impact Awards Gala, which featured appearances by Grimes, the artist, singer and ex-life partner of Elon Musk, as well as video artist Refik Anadol and musician Arqam Al Abri.

Topping the bill on Wednesday will be Oracle’s Larry Ellison, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who will deliver a keynote address in the morning. Google’s Sundar Pichai and Goldman Sachs’ Jared Cohen will speak in separate sessions on the future of tech.

The Daily Circuit: Saudi Arabia’s FII lands in Brazil + Nvidia pitches at the Museum of the Future

👋 Hello from the Middle East!

Today in The Daily Circuit, we’re looking at the latest share sale out of Saudi Arabia, AI power players like Nvidia making their pitch at Dubai’s Museum of the Future, the mud-brick palaces dusted off in Saudi’s tourism push and a possible windfall for ADQ’s PureHealth. But first, the FII crowd has landed in Rio de Janeiro.  

Saudi Arabia’s Future Investment Initiative, which hosts the annual “Davos in the Desert” gabfest, begins its first gathering in Latin America today. Following a buzzy meeting of FII PRIORITY in Miami earlier this year, the kingdom is broadening its sphere of influence with a summit drawing some of South America’s biggest names in business and government to the Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro. This iteration will delve into climate action, the Gulf’s emergence among the BRICS nations and new technology. 

FII, which counts the Public Investment Fund as a founding partner, is bringing together powerbrokers amid a flurry of trade activity between Saudi Arabia and Brazil. The two countries have discovered common ground on food security, mining and aviation, with Brazil hitting a 10-year high in export activity to the kingdom in 2023. 

The most recent deals include an agreement between Lulu, the Middle East’s biggest supermarket chain, and Brazil’s trade agency to promote Brazilian foodstuffs in the Saudi market, signed last week. In May, Brazilian mining giant Vale sold a 10% stake of its base metals unit for $2.5 billion to Manara Minerals, a joint venture between Saudi mining firm Ma’aden and the PIF. That same month, Brazilian aviation company Embraer inked cooperation agreements in the kingdom, with the airplane manufacturer planning to build or assemble its aircraft in Saudi Arabia under the deal. All of this comes as the kingdom mulls opening an investment office in South America’s biggest economy.

Speakers on the agenda at this FII gathering include Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Governor of the Public Investment Fund and Chairman of the FII Institute; Reema Bint Bandar Al Saud, Saudi Ambassador to the U.S.; Faisal Bin Bandar Al Saud, Chairman of the Saudi Esports Federation; and Mike Pompeo, former U.S. Secretary of State. Also scheduled to speak are Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih, Saudi Minister of Investment; Martin Sorrell, Executive Chairman of S4 Capital Group; André Esteves, Chairman of BTG Pactual; Bernard Mensah, President of International at Bank of America; and Julia Dias Leite, CEO of the Brazilian Center for International Relations.

📰 Developing Stories

POWER PUSH

Saudi Arabia’s energy firm Acwa Power is planning to raise 7.1 billion riyals ($1.9 billion) by issuing stock to existing shareholders days after Saudi Aramco landed $11.2 billion in its own share sale. Acwa Power, which is 44% owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, is one of the leading firms in Saudi Arabia’s decarbonization and diversification strategies. The company is planning to double annual investments to $2.5 billion in an international push into renewables and hydrogen, as well as projects in the kingdom, Bloomberg reports. Acwa’s shares have increased about 570% since listing on the Saudi Tadawul Exchange in October 2021. 

CHIPS FOR SALE

The convening of an “AI Retreat” at Dubai’s Museum of the Future today has presented a sterling opportunity for some of the biggest names in chips and data storage to show off their wares before some of the UAE’s top decision-makers in government. Executives from Nvidia, Google Cloud, Microsoft, AWS, Oracle and IBM are all taking the stage today to tout their products as the UAE’s biggest city accelerates plans to implement AI across government services and attract more business from deep tech firms. On the sidelines of the gathering, Omar Al Olama, UAE Minister of Artificial Intelligence, said the UAE is looking to position itself as a top destination for advanced chip manufacturing, in an interview with Bloomberg. He added that he believes U.S. security concerns over technology leaking from the Middle East and into China are understandable. “Sometimes you are a victim of the neighborhood you are in,” he said.

UNBURIED TREASURE

Saudi investment in heritage tourism is starting to pay off

Across Saudi Arabia, ancient sites filled with the remnants of mud-brick imperial palaces and rocky Nabatean tombs are coming back to life, Rebecca Anne Proctor writes for The Circuit.

Desert Drawcard: From Riyadh’s Diriyah royal district and storied Red Sea port of Jeddah to the desert region of AlUla, the kingdom is spending lavishly to uncover its buried past and use it as a draw for both foreign and domestic tourists.

Rich Rewards: Over the last five years since Saudi Arabia first introduced online visas for international visitors, tourism has grown dramatically. More than 100 million visitors entered the kingdom in 2023, a 56% increase from 2019. 

Click here to read the full story.

💲 Sovereign Circuit

Investment Corp. of Dubai: Brookfield Asset Management agreed to sell the Conrad hotel in Seoul to ARA Korea REF, a real estate fund, for about $302 million, Bloomberg reports. In April, Brookfield and the Dubai sovereign wealth fund announced the sale of a 49% stake in Dubai’s $1.5 billion ICD Brookfield Place tower to a pair of Middle Eastern investors.

ADQ: Abu Dhabi energy company TAQA, owned by ADQ, has confirmed it ended talks with Spanish group Criteria Caixa to jointly take over Spanish gas and power firm Naturgy Energy Group. TAQA had been holding discussions with private equity investment firms GIP and CVC to acquire their shares in Naturgy, according to a statement to Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange on Tuesday. Meanwhile, ADQ-backed PureHealth is in line for a potential $800 million windfall, if U.S. subsidiary Ardent Health’s July ambitions for an IPO go to plan.

↪↩ Closing Circuit

🪪 Passport Printer: Abu Dhabi-based E7 Group plans to invest $50 million in its E7 Security business, aiming to strengthen its passport manufacturing capacity and enter the digital tax stamps market.

📱 Hold the Phone: HMD Global, the Finnish manufacturer of Nokia mobile phones, plans to produce 4 million traditional and smartphones annually in Egypt for export across Africa.

💸 Building Portfolio: UAE-based Magellan Group agreed to pay more than $750 million to acquire Danish Ship Finance as it seeks to build a diverse investment portfolio.

🗣 Circuit Chatter

🩺 AI Healthcare: Saudi Arabia is aiming to integrate artificial intelligence across its healthcare sector by 2030, developing AI applications ranging from robot-assisted surgery and imaging to genomics and medical education.

🏭 Aluminum Complex: Oman is planning to build a special complex for aluminum manufacturers in Suhar Industrial City, assembling an interagency team to visit the site and help the industry become competitive.

👛 Super Suq: Bahrain is moving ahead with eight-year-old plans to give the Manama traditional suq, or market, a modern facelift, using technology to improve the visitor experience.

🏗️ On Hold: U.S. chipmaker Intel is halting plans for a $25 billion factory in Israel, Calcalist reported.

⛱️ No R&R: American activist hedge fund Elliott Investment Management, founded by Paul Singer, is gearing up for a busy summer after taking seven new stakes in major companies around the world since April, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, on Monday approved legislation addressing the expansion of self-driving vehicles and electric cars. Sheikh Mohammed chaired the UAE Cabinet meeting at Qasr Al Watan in Abu Dhabi, where the Cabinet reviewed and approved a range of initiatives, including the Ethical Charter of Development and Use of AI, which defines how AI should be used ethically and responsibly. At the same meeting, the Cabinet reviewed progress on the Emirati Genome Program, an effort to sequence the DNA of every citizen in the country. 

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed received a phone call on Monday from Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of the Netherlands. The pair discussed bilateral relations and reviewed regional and international developments.

Hassan Berkani, President of the Casablanca-Settat Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Services, confirmed that the UAE is the largest Arab investor in Morocco, with investment volumes expected to double in the coming years, speaking on the sidelines of a trade mission organized by the Dubai International Chamber.

💃 Eid Entertainment: While many UAE residents will take the opportunity for a short vacation for the Eid Al Adha holidays, falling on June 16-18 this year, there are also plenty of live shows for those staying close to home. The National rounds up 10 concerts and events, from late Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum’s hologram concert returning to Dubai, to “Matilda, The Musical” at Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Arena.