Partnerships with tech leaders
Partnerships with global technology leaders are reinforcing this trajectory. In April 2024, Microsoft invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based G42, taking a minority stake and a seat on its board to co-develop AI solutions using Microsoft Azure across the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi inaugurated the UAE-US AI Campus, home to “Stargate UAE”, which will be the largest AI data centre complex outside the US. Led by G42 with partners including OpenAI, Oracle, NVIDIA, Cisco and SoftBank, the multi-phase hyperscale hub will provide the infrastructure for AI model development, training and inference, while integrating renewable energy sources and advanced cooling systems to reduce its environmental impact. The facility will also house research and development centres and training programmes to expand the local AI talent pool, with early projects expected in government services, healthcare, energy, finance and logistics.
Investments in skills development
To ensure these gains are widely shared, the UAE is investing heavily in AI-focused skills development. Flagship programmes include the Dubai Centre for Artificial Intelligence’s “One Million Prompters” – a three-year global initiative launched in 2024 to train one million people in AI prompt engineering – and the federal “One Million AI Talents in the UAE” initiative, announced in partnership with Microsoft in 2024, which aims to equip government teams with future-ready AI skills by 2027. Together, these efforts are designed to build an AI ready workforce and embed AI capabilities deeply into the labour market. Taken as a whole, the UAE’s efforts position AI not merely as the next technological step, but as a cornerstone of its post-oil economic model – one built to deliver innovation-driven, sustainable, and human-centred growth well into the future.