Today's Edition
KHALED AL KHAWALDEH (ABU DHABI)
UAE business leaders put AI and the emerging industries surrounding it front and centre as thousands of global investors gathered in Abu Dhabi for the fourth Investopia conference on Wednesday.
The two-day conference will bring together over 100 speakers, including government leaders, ministers, investors, entrepreneurs, decision-makers, economists, high-net-worth individuals, and major capital funds from around 20 countries.
This year's edition features global business forums, including the "Arab, Central Asia and Azerbaijan Business Forum", the "China-Arab Entrepreneurs Summit", and the "Future 100 Forum" on entrepreneurship in the country. This year's event focused on AI as a primary talking point, with the UAE aiming to position itself both as a leader in AI as well as an investment centre.
Signaling the appetite for AI investment in the UAE, real estate mogul, DAMAC CEO and founder Hussain Sajwani publicly declared that he wished to one day be remembered for AI.
"Everybody thinks I'm a property guy. I hope in 20 years, people forget me as a property guy and think of me as an AI and technology and data centre guy," Sajwani said on Wednesday.
Sajwani made headlines when he announced a $20 billion investment in AI data centres in the USA alongside President Trump at a Mar-a-Lago event earlier this year. He said he believed it was paramount for successful businesses to be flexible in their strategies and always be open to following the latest trends.
This sentiment was echoed by Mariam AlMheiri, Head of International Affairs at the Presidential Court and CEO of 2PointZero, a UAE investment platform working to proliferate the AI and crypto industries.
"I want you to think back to the era of the gold rush. If you think of where we are today, we're in the AI boom, that's basically the gold rush of our time now," she said.
AlMheiri told the crowd about the proactive measures that the UAE government and institutions were taking to ensure they were AI-ready.
She highlighted the importance of building the infrastructure, which includes massive amounts of power, land, resources, minerals and manpower to ensure that the opportunity of AI could be adequately seized.
"I'll just give you some basic numbers. If you think of a hyper-scale AI data centre, you're looking at the power and needs of about 100 megawatts. Now, for those of you who maybe cannot put that into perception, that's enough to power 100,000 homes, approximately.
"Now, think of the space, it's approximately 10 to 20 hectares or, say, 18 to 20 football fields. Now I want you to think of the equipment that you need in there. You need your cooling systems, you need your storage. You need your redundancy. You need nearly 10,000 kilometres of copper wire."
AlMheiri explained how the UAE was investing both locally and abroad to procure all the requirements necessary to compete in the AI race.
Crucially, she said these included investment in mining through International Resources Holding (IRH), an Abu Dhabi-based company which she said had become the "mining company of the UAE" and was investing heavily in mineral and copper mining in Africa.
"In this country, there are so many ingredients to reach these kinds of targets quickly, and I think we have the best foundation leadership policies," she said.
