Today's Edition
ISIDORA CIRIC (ABU DHABI)
Abu Dhabi has ranked as MENA’s top AI city and 11th globally in The Observer's inaugural AI Cities Index, with Dubai placing 14th.
The Observer defines AI capacity as a city's demonstrated ability to originate, build, finance and absorb the technology. Its report ranks 57 cities using 50 indicators grouped into seven sub-pillars and combining quantitative data with qualitative fieldwork.
Abu Dhabi recorded its strongest result in Operating Environment, ranking fifth globally with a score of 77.9, ahead of New York, San Francisco, Singapore and Beijing on this measure.
The measure covers governance and institutions, including dedicated AI bodies and strategies, national policy-setting, AI research centres and the presence of highly ranked computer science universities.
The UAE capital also ranked sixth globally for public investment with a score of 36.2 and seventh for Private Investment at 18.4, giving Abu Dhabi three sub-pillars inside the global top seven.
In Development, which covers patent activity, model performance and open-source datasets and models, Abu Dhabi ranked 11th worldwide with a score of 26.0. Its Research score of 6.8 placed it 27th, while it came 30th in the Commercial Ecosystem pillar with 4.2 and 33rd in Infrastructure with 25.2.
Dubai's strongest result was public investment with a score of 63.7 - two places above Abu Dhabi and the city's highest position across the seven measures. It also entered the global top 10 for Operating Environment, ranking 10th with 66.6, while a score of 27.0 placed it 27th for Infrastructure.
Its remaining results put Dubai 33rd in both Development – with a score of 12.8 – and Commercial Ecosystem, at 3.6. The city ranked 42nd in Private Investment with 2.9 and 57th in Research with 1.7.
Both UAE cities still finished ahead of Toronto, Tel Aviv and Boston, which The Observer described as historically competitive technology centres.
In its accompanying analysis, the publication grouped Abu Dhabi with Paris and Seoul among "state-built" AI centres, where top-down investment is directed towards domestic research, infrastructure, public adoption and private-sector growth.
The same analysis said Gulf cities were outperforming established computing research centres because of active sovereign wealth funds and government engagement.
San Francisco ranked first overall, followed by New York, Seoul, Beijing, Paris and London. Shenzhen placed seventh, Shanghai eighth, Tokyo ninth and Singapore 10th.
The editorially independent project was produced by The Observer in partnership with Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) and Khalifa University.
The Observer plans to repeat and refine the index annually, giving the 2026 edition a baseline against which Abu Dhabi and Dubai's future positions can be measured.
