Today's Edition
RABI HAMAMSAH (ABU DHABI)
Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) and StartAD joined forces on Wednesday to welcome founders of AI-powered startups, who shared their insights about establishing and growing AI ventures in the UAE.
The discussion centred on the unique opportunities and challenges faced by AI startups in the UAE. The founders emphasised the UAE’s strong potential as a leading centre for AI startups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). They attributed this potential to several factors, including the UAE’s robust economy, strategic location, strong financial reserves, sizable sovereign wealth fund, ongoing government investment in infrastructure, forward-thinking economic policies, and rising foreign direct investment (FDI).
A report from PwC, titled “$320 billion by 2030?”, forecasts a significant impact of AI systems on the UAE’s economy. The report projects that AI could contribute to approximately 14% of the UAE’s GDP by 2030. It is estimated that AI will add $182 billion to the UAE’s economy annually by 2035, underscoring the importance of emerging AI projects in bolstering the country’s knowledge-based economy.
Abu Dhabi-based entrepreneur Jay Sadiq, the founder of the cleantech startup “Fortyguard”, which is on a ‘’mission to cool cities’’, highlighted the public and private sector support for establishing AI startups in the UAE.
“I think it’s a combination of an ecosystem that is dynamically working with each other,” Sadiq said. “When you say ecosystem, you have in the public sector and the policymakers, and we’re witnessing a lot of those startups coming up now, as well as a lot of other accelerators in the UAE, that are dedicating a lot of the funds, the investment, the mentorship, and the support that they can give to startups who are working in the AI industry or sectors.”
Sadiq also noted increasing interest in AI technologies from the country’s private sector institutions, stating: “You can see support from large corporations who want to adapt AI into their business, whether it’s for their products, their services, or even what I would call their knowledge base, and how they do business internally, how do they communicate, how do they look into the market in terms of information, data, their database and so on.”
Highlighting the UAE’s unique early public sector support, Sadiq said: “We’re in the UAE, one of the very first markets that regulated AI, adapted the technology into government services in the private sector and in many industries, whether it’s health, oil and gas, energy, or many others. There is a lot of attention now, and support, that many of the innovators get.”
MBZUAI in itself is a unique display of the country’s strong foray into the field of AI, Sadiq said. “We bring talent from all across the globe to do the curriculum here in the UAE, and then send it back to the rest of the world. I think we’re one of the biggest contributors today when it comes to AI,” he said.
Professor Hao Li, an Associate Professor at MBZUAI and CEO and co-founder of “Pinscreen”, a startup that builds AI-driven virtual avatar technologies, told Aletihad that the UAE has what it takes to be a pioneer in the AI industry, noting that “there is a feeling of a big ambition to build an AI startup in the UAE”.
“MBZUAI is starting this innovation and entrepreneurship centre, so that there is a way to bootstrap. How do we bring in investors? How do we organise these kinds of panels? How do we find top entrepreneurs and people? Who is here already? Who has the experience? And how we can sort of bootstrap this type of ecosystem? To me it’s just a place where it’s just starting,” he added.
Ahmed Abaza, CEO and co-founder of “Synapse Analytics”, an AI and data science company, told Aletihad that talent Emirati youth hold the key to building additional AI ventures in the UAE.
“The main problem all over the world is talent. I think there is a lot of investment when it comes to building capabilities that can pioneer such technologies, and I think we are in the only country in the world that has a minister of AI as well,” Abaza said.
“I believe this shows that there are a lot of signs and willingness to invest in talent and capabilities to make sure that the market has what it needs to build a pioneering industry in the region,” he added.
