Artificial Intelligence in the Middle East

Abundant energy, open land, sovereign investment and a young, connected population give the region what AI needs most: power, capital and talent. The UAE appointed the world's first minister for artificial intelligence in 2017, and both the UAE and Saudi Vision 2030 now place AI at the center of their national plans. You can read more in the region's national visions.

Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia are all adding cloud regions and data centers from the world's largest technology firms, bringing faster services and new jobs to the region. Business travelers can meet the industry at events such as GITEX in Dubai; see business travel and conferences.

More than 400 million people speak Arabic, and regional labs are building language models trained for Arabic and its dialects. Abu Dhabi's institutes and Saudi Arabia's national AI program both publish Arabic-first models, opening AI tools to millions of new users and creating a fast-growing local software industry.

Universities across the Gulf now teach AI from undergraduate level up, and governments run national programs to train coders and data scientists, so the talent pipeline is growing alongside the data centers.