Abu Dhabi is making its most aggressive pitch yet to become a global capital of self-driving vehicles, kicking off its inaugural Autonomous Week with a parade of pilot projects across land, air and sea mobility. 

In the opening panels of Monday’s Autonomous Summit, senior government officials touted the UAE’s regulatory advantages and pushed companies to develop their technology in the Emirates.

“Do not waste your time in any other country,” said Faisal Al Bannai, adviser to the UAE President and Secretary General of the Advanced Technology Research Council. “This is the city to be in.”

The talkfest kicks off a week-long showcase at Yas Marina Circuit, the home of Abu Dhabi’s F1 Grand Prix, which includes a global soccer tournament for humanoid robots, a car racing league and an exhibition space. Guests on Day 1 were welcomed by robots serving up coffee and ice cream, while others mowed lawns.

Companies including California-based firms Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation are awaiting licenses to start commercial operation of flying taxis in the UAE, while multiple operators are already experimenting with driverless cars and buses. 

Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohamed, Chairman of the Smart and Autonomous Systems Council, attended the summit, seated alongside Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, the UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and CEO of the ADNOC national oil company. “While other cities are still testing pilot programmes, Abu Dhabi and the emirate at large have already integrated autonomy across land, sea and air,” Sheikh Hamdan wrote in an opinion piece for The National.

Saudi Arabia is hosting the U.N. World Tourism Organization’s General Assembly this week as it unveils a broader tourism strategy aimed at attracting mass-market travelers, not just high-end visitors.

Saudi Tourism Minister Ahmed Al-Khateeb said the shift marks a new phase in the government’s campaign to turn tourism into a major economic engine and draw 150 million visitors annually by the end of the decade.

“We have already started building destinations for the middle class and upper middle class,” Al-Khateeb told Reuters in an interview. “We will not ignore this segment.”

Delegates from more than 150 countries are attending the event in Riyadh, where Saudi officials are promoting investments tied to sustainability, heritage preservation and new technologies such as artificial intelligence.

With Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman due to visit the White House this month, U.S. President Donald Trump is attempting to inject new life into the Abraham Accords.

First signed five years ago to normalize Israel’s ties with the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco, the agreement will be expanded to include the central Asian nation of Kazakhstan, whose population is mostly Muslim, Trump said on Thursday.

Posting on his Truth Social media platform, Trump said he held a three-way call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

The U.S. leader said Kazakhstan would be the first of “many” new countries to join in his second term.

Tokayev said his decision to join the accords was driven primarily by financial benefits, The New York Times reports. “We will get certain dividends from the point of view of economic cooperation,” he said.

Trump has repeatedly coaxed Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader to join the agreement and said that the issue will be on the agenda for their Nov. 18 meeting.

Prince Mohammed, who has said he would like to improve ties with Israel, more recently conditioned signing the accords on the Jewish state agreeing on a “pathway” to Palestinian statehood.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund will back a U.S. women’s golf event for the first time on the LPGA Tour when the Aramco Championship is held in Las Vegas this coming April.

The sovereign wealth fund said it will offer a $4 million purse, making it one of the largest prize funds for a regular LPGA event outside the four major women’s golf competitions in the U.S., the Associated Press reports.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has steered the PIF into becoming a leading backer of professional sports, creating the LIV Golf tournament and becoming a sponsor of the ATP tennis series. The PIF also owns a stake in the English Premier League’s Newcastle United football club. LPGA commissioner Craig Kessler described the Saudi-sponsored event as “exactly where we’re headed” in building a truly global schedule.

The move comes amid ongoing tensions in men’s professional golf, where efforts to merge the PGA Tour and PIF-backed LIV Golf remain stalled. Negotiations that once seemed poised to formally integrate LIV’s model into the PGA Tour framework were never finalized, leaving both sides in limbo. Although a framework agreement was signed in June 2023 between PIF and the PGA Tour and European Tour, the deal has yet to yield a merger.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump used the PIF-sponsored American Business Forum in Miami on Wednesday to celebrate the one-year anniversary of his election victory. Asserting that the U.S. has the “greatest economy” in the world, he blamed Republican setbacks in Tuesday’s off-year elections on the party’s communication failures, not economic conditions, the AP reported.

Princess Reema bint Bandar, Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to the U.S., hailed technology ties between the two countries during a moderated discussion at the forum.|

Also causing a stir was an unverified report that the PIF is preparing a competing $70 billion offer for Warner Bros. Discovery amid Paramount’s attempt to buy the U.S. media and entertainment conglomerate.

Microsoft President Brad Smith was in Dubai with G42 CEO Peng Xiao on Thursday to roll out plans for expanding the capacity of their joint data centers in the UAE by an additional 200 megawatts.

Completion for upscaling G42’s Khazna Data Centers is targeted for the end of 2026 and the project follows Microsoft’s $1.5 billion investment in G42 earlier this year.

“We can leverage the resources of the UAE to help other nations,” Peng said.

Smith said the UAE’s geographic location bridges Asia and Europe and could enable the Microsoft-G42 partnership to serve 4 billion people.

Abu Dhabi is doubling down on its commitment to invest in the U.K.

Four years ago, the emirate agreed to channel 10 billion pounds ($13 billion) via its Mubadala sovereign fund into British assets, particularly in tech and life-sciences firms and London property developments, signing a deal labeled the Sovereign Investment Partnership.

Since then, spending in the U.K. by Abu Dhabi entities has ballooned to 20 billion pounds, Bloomberg reports.

Among the investments was the $600 million stake Mubadala bought this year in London-based school operator Nord Anglia Education.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer underlined the U.K.’s desire to draw more Gulf investment with a visit to the UAE and Saudi Arabia last December.

Easing tensions in the Red Sea have delivered a boost to Egypt’s Suez Canal, with hundreds of ships returning to ply the global trade route in October.

Canal revenues rose 14% year-on-year between July and October, with 4,405 ships carrying 185 million tons of cargo during the period.

More than 200 ships returned to the canal in October, leading to the highest monthly total since Houthi attacks off Yemen sharply reduced traffic, Reuters reports.

Lieutenant General Osama Rabie, Chairman of the Suez Canal Authority, said that the positive climate following last month’s Sharm el-Sheikh summit on Gaza’s future encouraged many carriers to return.

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis carried out over 100 attacks on ships in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Bab al-Mandab Strait, during 2023-2024.

Saudi Arabia’s quest to buy as many as 48 F-35 stealth fighter jets from Lockheed Martin is picking up traction amid White House preparations for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Nov. 18 visit to the White House.

On its way to final approval, the deal cleared a critical hurdle when it recently received a green light from the Pentagon, Reuters reports. U.S. officials noted that the proposed sale still must be fully confirmed by the Trump administration with a formal notification to Congress.

Before delivery of the world’s most advanced fighter jets can be made to the Gulf kingdom, lawmakers have the authority to block or amend the deal, which is expected to draw scrutiny given regional sensitivities and human rights concerns.

Saudi Arabia has sought the F-35s as part of a broader effort to modernize its armed forces and replace aging aircraft. The request comes amid shifting regional alliances and increasing security coordination between Washington and the Gulf states, including the UAE and Qatar.

The F-35 boasts stealth capabilities that reduce radar visibility, though any Gulf sale would likely involve modifications or restrictions because U.S. policy requires that Israel, which first purchased the F35s in 2016, retain a “qualitative military edge” in the region, according to Reuters.