Today's Edition
SARA ALZAABI (ABU DHABI)
Abu Dhabi is putting more than 70 cutting-edge technologies in the spotlight, spanning artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, climate innovation and cybersecurity.
The Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC) is showcasing how scientific breakthroughs are becoming practical solutions and commercial ventures.
Held on Tuesday at ATRC headquarters on Yas Island, the Lab-to-Market Showcase bridges research and market-ready innovation.
Highlights include Emirati-language AI, autonomous vehicles, water-saving materials, laser-based rain enhancement, hybrid rockets and real estate tokenisation.
Aletihad spoke with researchers and company leaders about the technologies, their applications, and their potential impact in the UAE.
Rodrigo Campos, Chief Commercial Officer, VentureOne (ATRC), highlighted how Abu Dhabi is connecting scientific research with industry needs and commercial opportunities through more than 70 technologies showcased at the Lab-to-Market event.
Explaining the council’s approach, he said: “We have organised the Lab-to-Market in four phases which is pretty much the way that the Advanced Technology Research Council works.”
The process begins with research and development, bringing together industry and government partners to identify challenges requiring applied research and solutions that create value for the UAE. “We collaborate with industry partners to identify problems that are worth solving,” he said.
Following the research stage, technologies progress to proof-of-concept testing, where industry partners deploy them in operational environments to assess their practical applications.
Omar Alkaabi , AI researcher at the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), explained that the Arabic AI suite includes three models covering text recognition, Emirati-language AI, and multilingual audio translation.
“The first one is the Arabic OCR model, where you can extract any hard copy form you have, and it's going to get digitalised in Arabic,” Alkaabi said.
He explained that the technology can digitise printed archives, magazines and newspapers, while the second model, Falcon-Emirati, is designed to understand and respond in the local dialect.
“It's a 7B model built on top of Falcon Arabic 7B,” he said, referring to the Falcon-H1-Arabic foundation model.
Trained on Emirati data, Falcon-Emirati recognises local vocabulary, expressions and traditions associated with the seven emirates, supporting efforts to preserve the dialect for future generations.
“It was made to target next generations so they can adapt and speak Emirati properly,” he added.
The third model supports speech recognition and translation across Emirati Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic, English and French, enabling spoken Emirati Arabic to be translated into English during meetings.
“It takes few seconds just to get the translation immediately,” Alkaabi said.
Sultan Abu Ghazal, Head of Engineering, at TACTICAAI, said the company is developing systems that combine information from multiple sources to improve situational awareness.
“We help our clients take feeds from different sources, from satellites, from IOT, from CCTV cameras, and fuse them on a dashboard to help generate insight and help them take action,” he said.
He explained that the technology processes satellite imagery and other information to provide users with actionable insights. “Some of our products help our clients run ai models on satellite imagery and summarise and provide insight on those satellite imagery,” he said.
The systems also incorporate machine learning and agentic AI to support operators in analysing information from different sources.
“We use agentic AI and different agents to help the operators and the users get the insight from the different analysis that we run,” Abu Ghazal added.
Climate innovation is another major focus, particularly technologies designed to address the UAE's environmental and agricultural challenges.
Dr Florent Kebalo, Researcher in the Biochemistry Group at the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), discussed the development of bio-based hydrogels produced from waste materials, including coffee waste and lignin extracted from date palms.
“These are products that we are producing from different wastes,” he said.
He explained that the materials are designed to improve water retention in sandy soils, helping farmers reduce irrigation requirements.
“The role of these hydrogels are to increase the water holding capacity of the soil so that like we can save water in agriculture,” he said.
Greenhouse experiments have already demonstrated promising results, including lower water consumption and improved fertiliser efficiency.
“We were able to save a 30 to 50% of water,” he said. The researcher added that the technology also supports agricultural productivity while making use of materials that would otherwise become waste. “These hydrogels we are using follow the principle of sustainability and the circular economy principles,” he added.
Alongside agricultural innovation, researchers are exploring new approaches to rainfall enhancement.
Dr Kiran kabotu, a senior researcher in the laser-matter interaction team at TII, explained that the project investigates how high-power lasers interact with atmospheric conditions to influence droplet formation and precipitation.
“We are doing a laser rain project to explore the high power lasers influence in the clouds atmospheric condition where the droplet formation and precipitation,” he said.
The research combines atmospheric science, remote sensing and laser technology, with the aim of developing an alternative approach to rain enhancement. “We are combining the atmospheric science and remote sensing and laser technology,” he explained.
The team is now progressing beyond laboratory experiments to assess how the technology performs under actual atmospheric conditions. “We are now moving from laboratory test to field environment to understand the real environmental condition,” he added.
Another project advances Abu Dhabi’s hybrid rocket technology. Hessa Almarzooqi, Researcher in Rocket propulsion, TII, explained that the system combines solid fuel with a liquid oxidiser.
“Our project is about hybrid rocket, which is a combination between liquid and solid. The fuel is solid and the oxidizer is liquid,” She said. She highlighted the operational advantages of this approach, particularly in terms of cost and handling.
“The main advantage is that it is cost effective, easy to handle and safe to operate,” Almarzooqi said.
The team has developed and tested a rocket powered by a 500-newton hybrid motor, reaching an altitude of approximately 3.5 kilometres. “It reached about 3.5 kilometers of altitude,” she said.
The next stage will focus on increasing the rocket's capabilities.
“Our next step is to scale up to a 20 kilometer rocket using a 4 kilonewton motor,” she added.
Autonomous technologies are advancing logistics in challenging environments.
Michael Sonderby, CEO of SteerAI, said the UAE-based company is developing autonomous driving software for off-road applications using technology built in the country.
“SteerAI is a company based here in the UAE, built with UAE tech, and we focus on autonomous driving software for off-road applications,” he said. Among its products is the xRift autonomous vehicle, powered by CoreX autonomous driving software and designed for flexible off-road operations.
“It has the CoreX autonomy software, it's a second product, and essentially operates with a very flexible operational range and also payload,” he explained. The vehicle supports logistics and other operations, with a payload capacity of up to 500 kilogrammes.
“Allowing end users to use it both for logistics, and for any other use case where they have the need for up to 500 kilos of payload,” Sonderby said.
The company's third product, CoreConnect, is a fleet management system enabling operators to plan, execute and monitor autonomous vehicle missions.
“So essentially entering the mission, planning for it and executing it. End-to-end operational flexibility, and of course transparency and data collection,” he added.
The showcase also highlights emerging financial technologies, including plans to make real estate investment more accessible through tokenisation.
Kasparas Savickas , senior programme manager at VentureOne, said the company is developing a platform that converts real-world assets into fractional digital tokens.
“We're building an exciting venture tokenizing real-world assets,” he said.
The first planned application will focus on Abu Dhabi's property market, with a launch targeted for 2027. “Our first use case is real estate in Abu Dhabi,” he said.
The initiative aims to allow investors to purchase fractional interests in property, potentially lowering the financial threshold for participation.
