It is no surprise that the UAE wants to become the global leader in artificial intelligence (AI). Steps have already been taken to turn their aspirations into a reality, including making the UAE the first country to appoint the first AI minister in the world in 2017.
AI is going to be yet another way the Gulf nation will diversify from being an oil economy to massively improving the quality of life in the country. Let us take a look at how the UAE is getting closer to its AI aspirations:
AI In Government Services
The nation is aiming to incorporate AI into government services. Recently, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai, approved the appointment of 22 chief AI officers to different government departments.
The chief AI officers represent various government entities, including Dubai Customs, Dubai Police, Dubai Health Authority, and the Department of Finance.
The Artificial Intelligence Firm G42
Back in 2018, the UAE founded the artificial intelligence firm known as G42. This firm is all about pushing for innovation and achieving technological advancements in healthcare, AI, Cloud Computing, and more.
G42 is home to everything from data centers to cloud computing, allowing for new innovations across the UAE.
The Dubai Center for Artificial Intelligence
In June of last year, an entire center for artificial intelligence opened up where employees of more than 30 government bodies are trained to use generative AI to create images, videos, text, 3D models, and much more.
World’s First Artificial Intelligence University
Known as the Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, this is Abu Dhabi’s new graduate-level AI research institution that began its studies in 2020.
The special university offers master of science and PhD programs in three of the fastest-growing areas of AI: machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing. Today, the 2024 graduating class, which graduated recently, will play a pivotal role in the country’s development.
Release of Falcon 2 Series
Continuing its dive into AI, a government research institute in the United Arab Emirates recently released a new open-source GenAI model that could rival those from big technology companies.
Abu Dhabi’s Technology Innovation Institute is releasing the Falcon 2 series, a vision-to-language model that can generate a text description of an uploaded image. This is part of a race among countries to develop their own large language models.
All these steps are bringing the UAE closer to achieving the UAE National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence 2031 and becoming an AI hub.