Today's Edition
ABU DHABI (ALETIHAD)
Autonomous vehicles are starting to take their place in Abu Dhabi’s daily commute. What began as a pilot has grown into thousands of autonomous trips across the capital’s core urban areas.
Open the Uber app on Yas Island or Saadiyat, and you may be met by an autonomous vehicle, operated by WeRide, a global leader in autonomous driving technology.
Since launching at the end of 2022, the service has completed more than 40,000 trips and covered 600,000 kilometres, linking homes, offices, and even Zayed International Airport. Few cities worldwide have autonomous vehicles running directly to a major transport hub.
These scenes help explain why Abu Dhabi is drawing attention from policymakers and industry leaders worldwide. What sets Abu Dhabi apart is not just its willingness to trial new technology, but the way it has built a structure to move from small pilots to public services.
One example is the Smart and Autonomous Vehicle Industries (SAVI) cluster, launched in Masdar City in 2023 under the leadership of His Highness Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council.
Endorsed by His Highness, SAVI demonstrates Abu Dhabi’s commitment to positioning itself at the forefront of smart mobility and autonomy, providing developers with space to test technology across land, sea, and air, backed by advanced R&D facilities and certification pathways.
In the same year, Sheikh Khaled also established the Smart and Autonomous Systems Council (SASC), chaired by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to steer regulation, investment, and long-term strategy for the sector. Together, these initiatives highlight Abu Dhabi’s leadership-driven approach to building an integrated ecosystem for autonomous technologies.
In Abu Dhabi, innovation isn’t left to chance. The emirate has created zones where companies can test new systems, with the Smart & Autonomous Systems Council working in parallel to put the rules in place. It’s this combination that turns experiments into reality on Abu Dhabi’s roads, skies, and seas.
Through its partnership with WeRide, along with Uber and Tawasul Transport as the local operator of the project, Abu Dhabi became the first city outside the U.S. where Uber passengers could order a trip in an autonomous vehicle. Since its December 2024 launch in Al Saadiyat Island, Yas Island and routes to Zayed International Airport, the service has expanded to Al Reem and Al Maryah Islands by mid-2025, with the fleet tripling in less than a year. Officials say the long-term goal is for 25% of all trips in the emirate to rely on smart transport by 2040, as part of efforts to reduce carbon emissions and road accidents.
Simultaneously, Abu Dhabi is advancing the integration of autonomy into its logistics sector. In September 2025, the emirate launched its first pilot program for autonomous delivery vehicles in Masdar City, unveiling the region’s first official license plate for a self-driving delivery vehicle. This milestone marks a significant step towards the future implementation of full-scale autonomous delivery services across Abu Dhabi, underscoring that regulators view autonomous vehicles not merely as experiments, but as a vital component of the broader transportation ecosystem.
At sea, SAFEEN Green, an unmanned vessel operated by AD Ports Group, runs on electricity or biofuel and emits only about 10% of the emissions of a conventional vessel, a level of carbon reduction that highlights how autonomy can deliver real environmental gains in heavy industry.
In the skies, the emirate is advancing toward commercial air taxis. Abu Dhabi has signed partnerships with leading firms such as Archer, Joby, and EHang, unveiling its first vertiport at DRIFTx 2024. Archer has already conducted successful test flights in the capital, with its Midnight aircraft completing demonstration flights at Al Bateen Executive Airport in July 2025 - a milestone in the city’s journey toward launching passenger eVTOL services. The plan is to link vertiports at the airport, Yas Island, and key city hubs, laying the foundation for Abu Dhabi’s emerging urban air mobility network.
Abu Dhabi is also taking autonomy to the racetrack. The Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL), scheduled to return to Yas Marina Circuit in November 2025, will see AI-driven cars race head-to-head at speeds topping 300 kph, with algorithms making split-second decisions. The league draws engineers, scientists, and programmers from universities and tech hubs around the world to push the limits of racing AI. The result is both a spectacle and a testbed that is advancing technology, training the next generation of STEM talent, and underlining Abu Dhabi’s ambitions in autonomy.
Together, these initiatives show why global attention is turning to Abu Dhabi. Rather than isolated pilots, Abu Dhabi is advancing autonomy on land, sea, air, and robotics in parallel, with regulation and industry developing side by side.
That momentum comes into focus at Abu Dhabi Autonomous Week (10-15 November 2025), organised by the Smart and Autonomous Systems Council. For Abu Dhabi, it is more than a showcase, it’s proof that Abu Dhabi isn’t waiting for the future of mobility. It’s building it.
