UAE AI minister: ‘We’ll have 10,000 AI companies in five years’

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will have 10,000 artificial intelligence (AI) companies in five years’ time, up from 1,500 currently. At the same time, it intends to incentivise traditional industry sectors to use AI where they can to gain and retain market share.

Backing this plan to become an AI superpower are government schemes and an intent that saw the Gulf emirate become the world’s first to appoint a minister for AI in 2017, HE Omar Sultan Al Olama. He spoke at this week’s Expand North Star event in Dubai, where he outlined the UAE government’s frameworks aimed at encouraging AI-oriented organisations.

“We’re trying to have a balanced approach where we understand what the end game is, and we’re doing it with very active steps,” said Al Olama. “We’re doing a lot to try to attract the best brains and the best companies here. We have over 1,500 companies that are pure AI companies, and that’s the highest in the region. We believe this is a starting point, and our goal is to reach 10,000 in the next five years.

“To try to create that, we need to create an environment where the rest of the brightest people can come aboard the UAE.”

While the private sector forms the vast bulk of UAE economic activity, the public sector is a vital cog in its economy and society. The emirate’s plans in AI have a broad government planning backdrop in its UAE Centennial 2071 initiative.

This will mark the country’s 100 years of independence from Britain, and sees AI plans to boost public and private sector performance at all levels and make the country a world leader in the field – an aim that will help its successful diversification away from over-dependence on oil and gas revenues.

Core to its AI-centric schemes is an AI certification and ranking programme, where companies are rated according to their level of competency and embeddedness in the UAE economy. Companies that apply for certification are ranked from simply being an AI company, through to those that have a full presence in the country and it’s where they build their models and have developed products for in-country use.

Al Olama said: “If you are just an AI company, you will get a D. If you have a representation here, the rank will go up to a C. If you do some R&D here, the rank will be a B. It’s almost like a health check for restaurants.

“And then, if you have your headquarters here, you actually build your models here, your team is here, and your AI is modelled for the UAE, then you get an S-ranking,” added Al Olama.

“So, as a government agency, if someone comes to pitch, if there are two players that are exactly the same, one has an S-ranking and the other has a C-ranking, the government agency is required to go with the S-ranking company.”

The AI minister said the plan is to extend that beyond startups and tech firms, so that all UAE companies can benefit from the competitive edge that using AI can bring.

“There are companies that have been here for decades – companies that are not startups, which have to prove their AI worth to you,” said Al Olama. They will want the ranking, so they will be incentivised to come and talk to us.

“If you think about the UAE’s position, we are in the logistics space, the tourism space, the airline space, and so on,” he added. “The market share we have captured in the past five decades is there because we’ve invested in new ways of doing business. So we want to make sure all of our industries use AI.”

A core belief of the minister and the UAE’s AI programmes is that the technology must be put to useful applications.

“Success to me is AI that improves the quality of life. It should help make your life better,” said Al Olama. “Failure would be you come to a show and you see a robot dog and people using things that are gimmicks to tell you that they are AI.”