The United Arab Emirates is investing heavily in artificial intelligence to reduce its dependence on oil, building a vast AI campus in Abu Dhabi with five gigawatts of computing power.
Phase one of the project, the Stargate UAE cluster, will be operated by OpenAI with support from tech giants like Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, and Nvidia, providing AI services across a 3,200-kilometre radius.
Since 2017, the UAE has prioritized AI, appointing the world’s first AI minister and launching a national AI strategy, while investing over $147 billion in research, development, and AI infrastructure globally.
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The country has also established the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, the world’s first AI-focused university, and introduced AI as a core subject in public schools from kindergarten upwards.
With abundant oil, gas, and solar energy, the UAE can power its AI data centres efficiently, while also balancing technology imports between the US and China to maintain sovereignty and independence.
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Despite these efforts, experts caution that success in AI is uncertain. The UAE continues to experiment with different strategies, aiming to become a competitive AI hub while mitigating risks of failure in a fast-changing industry.