The government of Abu Dhabi appointed a board of directors chaired by its Crown Prince for L’Imad Holding Co., the investment vehicle backed by the emirate’s sovereign wealth funds that last month joined Paramount’s hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros.

Jassem Al Zaabi,  Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Department of Finance and of telecommunications group e&, was named Managing Director and CEO, according to a government statement issued on Monday. Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, will serve as Chairman.

Board members include Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Managing Director and CEO of Mubadala Investment Co.; Waleed Al Mokarrab Al Muhairi, the sovereign fund’s Deputy CEO; and Mohamed Al Shorafa, Chairman of Etihad Airways and of the Abu Dhabi Department of Municipalities and Transport.

L’Imad – jointly owned by Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and ADQ – was formed last year as a state-owned investment vehicle designed to pool capital for large-scale global deal. Its mandate is to invest in industries that include infrastructure, financial services, technology and urban transportation.

The firm is part of the consortium that is backing Paramount Chairman David Ellison’s bid for Warner that includes Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the Qatar Investment Authority and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners.

L’Imad first made headlines in October when it bought a $7 billion stake in real estate investor Modon from IHC Real Estate Holding and Alpha Dhabi Holding, both subsidiaries of Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed’s International Holding Co.

Venture capital funding in the Middle East jumped 74% last year, hitting a record as startups raised about $3.8 billion across nearly 700 deals.

Much of the growth came from foreign investors, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE drawing the largest share of the money, Bloomberg reports, citing data from Magnitt.

The surge came even as venture funding stayed weak or slowed in many other regions.

Investors have been drawn by government-backed tech pushes, large domestic markets and a growing pipeline of local startups.

The Trump administration’s retreat from U.S. global climate commitments is forcing an Abu-Dhabi based global energy organization to seek cash from corporate donors.

The International Renewable Energy Agency will solicit help from businesses as well as additional donations from member countries to patch up its budget, Director-General Francesco La Camera told reporters at its annual assembly in the UAE capital on Sunday. The meeting is the first in a series of environmental conferences marking Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week.

The U.S. contributes about 22% of IRENA’s budget and there are doubts over whether it will fulfill its obligation to give one year’s notice before ceasing payments. 

“This is what politics brings,” La Camera said. “We have to accept it and strive for the best.”

The Trump administration announced last week that it was withdrawing from 66 global organizations, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, that the President said were “contrary to the interests of the United States.”

Abu Dhabi houses IRENA in a custom-built sustainable office complex on the edge of its futuristic green community, Masdar City, and is a substantial donor, alongside Germany and other European nations. Hosting the organization has helped burnish the UAE’s reputation for leadership in the energy transition, despite being among the world’s biggest oil producers.

Apollo Go, the ride-hailing platform owned by China’s Baidu, will be the first company to test fully driverless vehicles in Dubai, after receiving a permit from the emirate’s Road Transport Authority.

The authorization comes as Baidu officially launched a hub for autonomous vehicles in downtown Dubai, which includes charging and maintenance facilities and will eventually serve as a command center for a fleet of more than 1,000 robotaxis.

Uber and WeRide launched driverless taxis in parts of neighboring emirate Abu Dhabi in November.

Both emirates have ambitious plans for driver automation, with Dubai targeting 25% autonomous total transportation by 2030 and Abu Dhabi setting a similar goal for 2040.

Saudi Arabia has broken ground on what it describes as the world’s largest government data center, launching a facility in Riyadh intended to anchor the kingdom’s digital infrastructure and support artificial intelligence services.

Construction of the the 30 million square-foot (2.8 million square-meter) Hexagon project comes as Saudi Arabia and the UAE race to position the Gulf as a global hub for AI development, Arabian Gulf Business Insight reports. 

Hexagon’s size reflects Saudi Arabia’s growing use of internet-connected sensors and cameras across its cities, driving the need to process vast amounts of data.

The government already uses AI-powered systems to manage traffic – including 14,000 cameras within Riyadh’s public transportation network – generating continuous data flows that require large-scale computing capacity.

Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have signed agreements to use advanced Nvidia chips, expand cloud capacity and collaborate with leading model developers such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Elon Musk’s xAI.

Saudi Arabia has tied its push to new government-backed platforms and data centers, while the UAE has rolled out large AI campuses and investment vehicles to anchor partnerships with U.S. tech firms.

Environmental leaders, heads of state and corporate executives are heading to the UAE for Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, which kicks off on Sunday with the annual assembly of the U.N.’s International Renewable Energy Agency.

Hosted by UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the IRENA meeting will review progress in reaching the goal of tripling global renewable energy capacity by 2030. The target was set two years ago when the UAE hosted the U.N.’s COP28 climate summit in Dubai.

Masdar, the renewables company owned by Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala sovereign wealth fund, the national energy company TAQA, and national oil company ADNOC, is leading the week’s activities, which include the World Future Energy Summit and the China-sponsored Blue Forum on global water management.

Masdar CEO Mohamed Al Ramahi offered a preview of ADSW on Wednesday at a press conference where he said the company made commitments last year to spend $15 billion on renewable energy projects. He said Masdar plans to expand in markets including MENA, the U.S., Europe and Asia. 

Among the corporate chiefs headlining the conference will be Catherine MacGregor, CEO of Paris-based Engie; Patrick Pouyanne, CEO of TotalEnergies; Ignacio Galan, Executive Chairman of Spain’s Iberdrola and Talal Al Dhiyebi, CEO of the UAE-based Aldar Properties. 

Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, the UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and Chairman of Masdar, who served as President of COP28, will deliver a keynote address at the ADSW’s opening ceremony on Jan. 13. Speakers will also include IRENA Director-General Francesco La Camera, UAE Minister of Foreign Trade Dr. Thani Al Zeyoudi and TAQA CEO Jasim Thabet.

A new Saudi-backed partnership is putting artificial intelligence to work at the kingdom’s new luxury seaside resorts.

Red Sea Global and Bunat Ventures are launching an AI venture fund targeting startups, with plans to back about 25 budding firms a year, Arab News reports.

Beyond funding, the program will give founders access to RSG’s resorts, airport operations and other assets as testing grounds.

The partners say the effort is designed to strengthen Saudi Arabia’s innovation ecosystem, attract talent and support the kingdom’s broader push into advanced technologies.

Saudi Arabia will unleash its financial markets next month, scrapping regulatory barriers that have barred most foreigners from investing in the kingdom’s stock exchange.

The Capital Markets Authority said on Monday that it will eliminate its “Qualified Foreign Investor” regulations starting Feb. 1, allowing non-Saudis direct access to the $2.3 trillion stock exchange in Riyadh as part of efforts to boost global capital inflows and market liquidity.

Officials described the move as a key piece of broader economic reforms designed to diversify Saudi Arabia’s economy away from its historic reliance on the kingdom’s vast oil revenue. Until now, foreign investors had to show they had at least $500 million in assets under management to trade in Riyadh.

The change comes after the Saudi exchange’s Tadawul All Shares Index delivered its worst performance in 10 years, dropping 13% in 2025. Already, the kingdom has courted international money through partnerships, including exchange-traded funds with Japan and Hong Kong.

The Saudi government, meanwhile, is expected to announce new reforms in the real estate market this month that would make it easier for non-Saudis to buy homes, commercial properties and agricultural land, particularly in Riyadh, Jeddah, Mecca and Medina.

Institutional investors such as JP Morgan said the new rules on equities would have limited impactsince they already have access to the stock market, and holdings by smaller investors will be slow to reach a significant share, Reuters reports. More significant, they say, would be reforms that include raising foreign ownership limits for publicly traded companies that are expected later in the year.