#Qatar #investment - Predictive AI company ALPHA10X is moving its global headquarters from France to Qatar after a $5 million Pre-Series A round. Doha-based investment firm GrowthX Capital, founded by Qatari investor Hamad Mubarak al-Hajri, led the funding. The company, which builds decision intelligence software for private equity, venture capital and investment banking, plans at least 50 senior staff in Doha by the end of 2027. The money will mainly fund ALPHA10X’s product development and sharper predictive tools.

SO WHAT? - Qatar is purposefully attracting cutting edge AI ventures to set-up in the country by offing incentives, providing investment, cutting red tape and giving access to government buyers. ALPHA10X’s $5 million investment is not a big funding round for the AI space, however it brings technology, knowledge and expertise to the country’s ecosystem. If it hires 50 senior people by the end of 2027, then that’s 50 more AI experts helping to build Qatar’s knowledge-based economy.

KEY POINTS:

• GrowthX Capital led a $5 million Pre-Series A round in ALPHA10X, announced at a signing ceremony hosted by Qatar Chamber. The company is relocating from France to Qatar, bringing its technology and international growth plans with it.

• ALPHA10X plans to move staff to Doha, recruit locally and build a substantial regional presence. It expects at least 50 very senior people there by the end of 2027, according to the company’s founder and group chief executive, Robert Marcus.

• The platform’s proprietary reasoning system, ALPHAcodex, links investment evidence, predictive models and institutional decision-making rules. The system is built to make the logic behind investment calls more transparent and measurable, while final decisions stay with investors.

• The company is targeting private markets, including private equity, venture capital and investment banking. ALPHAcodex helps investors assess opportunities and risks, identify assumptions, weigh uncertainty and learn from past outcomes to make more consistent decisions.

• ALPHA10X previously raised $20 million in seed funding. Through a partnership with strategy consulting firm Kearney, it has delivered more than 100 engagements across 11 countries.

• The new investment will mainly pay for product development and better predictive capabilities. The company also wants to tie investment insights more closely to transaction execution and capital deployment.

• GrowthX Capital’s backer believes ALPHA10X could become a unicorn, meaning a private start-up valued at $1 billion or more.

[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]

Source: Gulf Times, ALPHA10X

Read more about Qatar AI companies:

• Scale AI opens new Doha office as Qatar team nears 100 (Middle East AI News)

• Invest Qatar backs Brain Co Doha move (Middle East AI News)

• Syira AI launches with Doha office (Middle East AI News)

• Wellbees raises $3.6 million to grow in GCC (Middle East AI News)

• Qatar’s ShipBee raises $500k to scale AI logistics platform (Middle East AI News)

#UAE #workforce - The Department of Government Enablement – Abu Dhabi (DGE), the emirate’s public-sector transformation body, has published a new workforce report: “Light Workforce Paradox”. The new study argues that as AI takes over routine work, the people left carry more weight. Its foresight study maps four work scenarios to 2040 and backs “Symbiotic Craftsmanship”, where AI works in the background and humans keep final judgement. The report also urges organisations to define who is accountable for AI-assisted decisions.

SO WHAT? - Abu Dhabi has 30,000 civil servants, a 2027 deadline and a theory that fewer tasks means heavier decisions to be carried by human workers. The report argues that as AI absorbs routine work, people make fewer decisions, and each one carries greater responsibility. the “Light Workforce Paradox”. If the decisions that remain become more consequential, then this calls for new governance, management and accountability rules.

KEY POINTS:

• The Department of Government Enablement – Abu Dhabi (DGE), has published a new report on AI and the workforce called “Light Workforce Paradox”.

• The new study argues that since AI cuts task volume and headcount, it also raises the strategic weight of human judgement. Oversight, exception-handling, ethical calls and responsibility for outcomes all grow in importance as AI expands what institutions can do.

• The DGE’s report sets out four scenarios for the period until the year 2040, which are shaped by two uncertainties: how fast AI automation advances and how far people trust it. The four scenarios are: Symbiotic Craftsmanship, Fluid Human Core, Stalled Symbiosis and Forced Automation.

• Symbiotic Craftsmanship is the preferred future described in the report. This is where AI absorbs administrative burden, while people keep judgement, nuance, creativity and relationship management. The Abu Dhabi report asserts that this won’t happen by default and is a path that has to be chosen, designed for and sustained by organisations.

• The two low-trust scenarios carry clear costs. The Stalled Symbiosis scenario sees AI tools fail to scale and morale erode, while the Forced Automation scenario delivers efficiency gains but damages workforce cohesion, accountability and public confidence in institutions.

• Over 95 per cent of Abu Dhabi’s 30,000 government employees have completed AI training. The emirate has more than 100 AI use cases running across over 40 government entities, while every public entity has a Chief Digital and AI Officer.

• Microsoft’s Global AI Diffusion Report for Q1 2026 ranked the UAE first in the world for AI adoption among working-age people. Abu Dhabi aims to become the first fully AI-native government by 2027.

• Five early moves are recommended: a standard naming an accountable person for key public decisions, role redesign pilots in high-stakes services, an audit of AI support across entities, training that rewards challenging AI outputs, and a public trust dashboard.

• Risks highlighted by the report include erosion of human judgement through over-reliance on AI, uneven access to AI tools, poorly designed tools that add cognitive load, and blurred accountability when humans and machines co-produce outcomes.

• The findings draw on a scan of more than 140 global trends, a three-stage Delphi process, and workshops with government practitioners and academic and international experts. The full report is titled “Light Workforce Paradox: Redefining Human Value in Human-AI Symbiosis”.

[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]

Source: Abu Dhabi Department of Abu Dhabi Enablement

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Light Workforce Paradox (Abu Dhabi DGE, 2026)

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Read more about AI’s effect on the workforce:

• 82% of GCC professionals use AI weekly, few are AI-trained (Middle East AI News)

• Workday opens Dubai office, cites 90% AI use (Middle East AI News)

• AI is adding to Gulf workloads, survey finds (Middle East AI News)

• Dubai government adopts productivity system (Middle East AI News)

• Middle East workers lead the world on AI adoption at work (Middle East AI News)

• UAE Vibe Codes attracts 5,000 in first hour signups (Middle East AI News)

• Oman Phaze Ventures launches two AI investment funds (Middle East AI News)

• KAUST showcases supercomputing advances at Saudi AI Conference (SPA)

Read the Feature of the Week from Karl Crowther Vice President - Middle East Africa, India and Southeast Asia at UiPath

Stories that you may have missed…

• Snowflake announces 300 million dollar Saudi investment

• Dubai launches AI Sandbox to overcome regulation

• Scale AI opens Dubai hub expanding Gulf presence

• Oman launches Autonomous Production Programme

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#UAE #vibecoding - The UAE government’s Artificial Intelligence Office has launched UAE Vibe Codes together with US software company Microsoft for UAE Codes Day on 29 October. According to the AI Office, 5,000 people signed-up for the UAE’s new vibe coding experience within an hour of launch. Using the coding platform, anyone can describe an idea in plain language and get a working website or app prototype in minutes, with no programming skills. The scheme aims to widen public access to AI tools, build confidence in creating digital solutions and prepare people for the digital economy.

SO WHAT? - Judging by the 5,000 sign-ups in an hour, there’s appetite for AI building tools well beyond the developer community. The UAE is treating coding skill like literacy, and it’s using ministries, banks, telecoms operators and cinema screens to spread it. For employers, the number of staff who can build their own simple tools without waiting on an IT team could grow quickly. However, the trend only emphasises the need for governance, observability and security of AI agents.

KEY POINTS:

• The UAE government’s Artificial Intelligence Office launched UAE Vibe Codes in partnersship with Microsoft on 29 October 2026, under this year’s UAE Codes Day theme of “Vibe Coding”. The platform drew 5,000 participants in its first hour.

• Participants describe an idea in natural language and AI tools turn it into a working prototype of a website or digital app. The experience runs through uaecodesday.specnt.com and requires no prior programming knowledge or experience.

• The invitation covers everyone in the UAE, including students, educators, entrepreneurs, business owners and employees in government and private companies. Age, background and field of expertise are no barrier to taking part.

• Suggested projects include a website to fix a workplace problem, an app to organise daily tasks, a digital tool for a startup or an educational resource. Prototypes can then be tested, refined and developed further.

• Government and corporate participants include the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Justice, UAE Space Agency, Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority, Emirates Health Services, telecoms operators Etisalat UAE and du, and bank Emirates NBD.

• The AI Office is also running hands-on workshops with Google, aluminium producer Emirates Global Aluminium, industrial technology group Siemens and IBM. Attendees start with a real idea or challenge and build an initial prototype using AI tools.

• Dubai property developer Emaar and cinemas across the UAE are promoting the experience on their digital screens and platforms. The aim is to reach families and groups who wouldn’t normally seek out a coding event.

• UAE Codes Day marks 29 October 2001, when His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum launched the region’s first e-government initiative. He made the date an annual observance in 2021, and UNESCO adopted it as International Day of Programming in 2023.

[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]

Source: UAE Government post on X.com

Read more about UAE AI Office news:

• UAE AI business adoption surges to 72% (Middle East AI News)

• UAE sends 50-strong team on US AI trip (Middle East AI News)

• Six startups advance in debut Mastercard Lighthouse (Middle East AI News)

• UAE AI Office publishes practical guide to GenAI (Middle East AI News)

Welcome to this week’s Middle East AI News email digest!

Lots of news to share in today’s newsletter. Scale AI expands across the Gulf, with a newly registered office at DIFC in the UAE and a new 2,000 sqm office in Doha as its Qatar team approaches 100 employees; more than $4 billion of Omani data centre projects have been announced during the UK state visit of Sultan Haitham bin Tarik; Snowflake announces a projected $300 million investment in Saudi Arabia; and Dubai AI Campus announces ambitious expansion goals for 2030!

Scroll down for more news.

We also have a new Feature of the Week from Karl Crowther is Vice President - Middle East Africa, India and Southeast Asia at UiPath: Why business orchestration is key to AI success for GSI organisations. Read it here!

And if you haven’t yet got your pass for next month’AIDC Expo and Cairo ICT, you can register for the event here.

Thanks for reading!

/Carrington

Oman Focus

Oman consortium plans $3B AI data centre

#Oman #datacentres - Mubbadrah Investment is leading an Omani consortium developing a $3 billion AI data centre with up to 400MW capacity. US-based Crusoe has expressed interest as a potential customer. Announced during His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik’s UK State Visit, the project includes 400MW of solar generation and battery storage. (Middle East AI News)

Yamna plans £1+ billion AI data centre in Oman

#Oman #datacentres - UK-founded Yamna has signed an agreement with Oman’s Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology to develop a hyperscale AI data centre in Salalah. Its first phase is expected to exceed £1 billion, creating more than 100 skilled British jobs and strengthening Oman’s AI infrastructure ambitions. (Middle East AI News)

Oman’s PDO launches autonomous oil programme

#Oman #energy - Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) has launched an Autonomous Production Programme combining AI, drones, robotics and real-time analytics to improve operational safety and efficiency. The company also unveiled digital twin and agentic AI initiatives, alongside a five-year partnership with SLB and Halliburton for digital well construction. (Middle East AI News)

Phaze Ventures launches two AI funds targeting $75M

#Oman #venturecapital - Oman’s Phaze Ventures has launched two AI-focused funds targeting over $75 million combined, securing more than $40 million in commitments. Backed by ITHCA Group, Ominvest and Future Fund Oman, the funds will support global deeptech startups and homegrown AI businesses. (Middle East AI News)

Oman advances drone trials across six key sectors

#Oman #drones - Oman’s Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology is advancing a national drone and air mobility testing programme covering six sectors, including healthcare, logistics and agriculture. Conducted within a regulatory sandbox, live trials are scheduled for December. (Oman Daily Observer)

Investment

Scale AI opens Dubai office, expands Gulf presence

#UAE #investmnet - Scale AI has established its UAE operation at Dubai International Financial Centre, completing expansion into the Gulf’s three largest digital economies in under two years. Its regional workforce now exceeds 130 across the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, while it explores agentic AI opportunities with Presight. (Middle East AI News)

Scale AI expands Doha office as team nears 100

#Qatar #investment- Scale AI has signed an agreement for a nearly 2,000-square-metre office at The Pearl in Doha. (Middle East AI News)

Snowflake plans $300m Saudi investment, cloud expansion

#Saudi #invesmtnet - Snowflake has announced a projected $300 million investment in Saudi Arabia through 2030 and inaugurated its Riyadh regional headquarters. The company plans two additional Saudi cloud regions in 2026 and will partner with MCIT to train 25,000 people. (Middle East AI News)

Brookfield opens Doha office amid $20B AI venture

#Qatar #investment - Canadian investment manager Brookfield has opened an office in Doha, expanding its presence in Qatar’s growing technology and investment market. The move supports a planned $20 billion AI infrastructure joint venture with Qai, a subsidiary of Qatar Investment Authority. (Middle East AI News)

Funds

Alpha Dhabi commits $1bn to global AI fund

#UAE #investment - Alpha Dhabi Holding has committed $1 billion to Alpha Wave III, a global fund targeting AI and high-growth tech ventures. The investment follows its participation in Alpha Wave Ventures II. (Middle East AI News)

Dubai AI

Dubai Chambers launches 22 AI business agents

#UAE #AgenticAI - Dubai Chambers has launched Chamber AI Hub, a marketplace offering 22 ready-made AI agents to support businesses across Dubai. The initiative aims to expand its catalogue to 100 agents within two years, making AI tools accessible to more than 295,000 companies. (Middle East AI News)

Dubai AI Campus targets 1,000 firms by 2030

#UAE #FDI - Dubai AI Campus aims to attract over 1,000 companies and create 5,000 skilled jobs by 2030. Approved by Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, the targets follow the campus attracting more than 500 companies and $270 million in funding since May 2024. (Middle East AI News)

Dubai launches AI Sandbox to ease regulatory barriers

#UAE #sandboxes - Dubai Future Foundation has launched an AI Sandbox allowing companies to test AI products under real-world conditions with regulatory guidance and potential exemptions. Open to startups, SMEs and established firms, applications close on 18 December 2026. (Middle East AI News)

Data Centres

Egypt plans seven mega data centres by 2030

#Egypt #datacentres - Egypt plans to develop up to seven mega data centres over the next five years, strengthening its digital infrastructure and international service export capabilities, according to the government. (Africa AI News)

Workforce

82% of GCC professionals use AI weekly

#GCC #workforce - A survey by Dubai-based Al-Futtaim finds 82% of GCC professionals use AI at least weekly, but only 39% feel highly confident. Just one in five organisations provides extensive training, although trained employees are 2.5 times more likely to feel confident using AI. (Middle East AI News)

Justice

Legaline launches AI virtual courtroom in Dubai

#UAE #law - UAE-based Legaline has launched an AI-powered virtual courtroom at Dubai AI Festival, enabling law students to practice simulated trials with AI judges, lawyers and witnesses. (Middle East AI News)

#Oman #venturecapital - Oman’s first private venture capital firm, Phaze Ventures, has launched two funds targeting more than $75 million combined, with over $40 million in investor commitments secured so far. Anchored by ITHCA Group (Oman Investment Authority’s subsidiary), Ominvest and Oman LNG Development Foundation, Phaze Ventures Fund II backs AI and deeptech startups globally. Phaze Ventures Oman Fund, anchored by Future Fund Oman, is a dedicated pool for homegrown AI-enabled businesses. The platform has already made 10 investments.

SO WHAT? - Launching in 2018, Phaze Ventures was Oman’s first dedicated venture capital firm in a market that had few local venture capital options. So, the announcement of two new funds follows eight years of experience of and track record in the Omani market. The funds’ focus on AI mirrors the recent acceleration in the country’s AI adoption, the bolstering of the national AI strategy and the rise of specialised AI startup ventures.

KEY POINTS:

• Phaze Ventures launched two venture funds targeting more than $75 million combined. It has secured over $40 million in commitments and is in discussions to grow the platform to the full target.

• Phaze Ventures Fund II is anchored by ITHCA Group, a subsidiary of Oman Investment Authority, alongside Ominvest and Oman LNG Development Foundation. It continues the firm’s global AI and deeptech mandate.

• Phaze Ventures Oman Fund is anchored by Future Fund Oman. It creates a dedicated capital pool for homegrown Omani AI-enabled businesses.

• The two funds have made 10 investments so far, including Arabic.AI, Sully.ai, Andromeda Surgical, Boardy.ai and Metal. Co-investors include a16z, 8VC, Standard Capital, Y Combinator and Baidu Ventures.

• Arabic.AI develops Arabic-language enterprise AI, with investment from Saudi Arabia’s HUMAIN and a partnership with Qualcomm Technologies. Andromeda Surgical, which is building AI-guided robotic surgery, raised a $15 million Series A led by Standard Capital after Phaze Ventures backed it.

• Phaze Ventures invested in the seed round of Metal, an AI fundraising platform, alongside Y Combinator and a16z. NVIDIA has published a case study on Sully.ai showing a 90 percent cut in inference costs.

• Founded in 2018 by Abdullah Al Shaksy, Mohammed Al Wahaibi and Masoud Al Rawahi, Phaze Ventures focuses on early-stage AI and deeptech companies in the GCC and North America. It has team members in Muscat, Dubai and Riyadh.

• The firm manages capital for more than 50 investors, including sovereign entities, listed companies, family offices and business families across Oman, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, India and beyond.

• The launch comes as Oman builds the International Financial Centre of Oman, a new hub for international companies and investors.

[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]

Source: Phaze Ventures

Read more about AI in Oman:

• Oman’s PDO launches autonomous production (Middle East AI News)

• Oman consortium plans $3 billion, 400MW AI data centre (Middle East AI News)

• Yamna signs £1B+ Oman AI data centre deal (Middle East AI News)

• Oman’s O-Green targets 200MW of AI data centres (Middle East AI News)

• Omani AI startups almost double in one year (Middle East AI News)

• Snowflake announces 300 million dollar Saudi investment (Middle East AI News)

• Dubai launches AI Sandbox to overcome regulation (Middle East AI News)

• UAE professionals unfazed by AI job threats (Zawya)

Read the Feature of the Week from Karl Crowther Vice President - Middle East Africa, India and Southeast Asia at UiPath

Stories that you may have missed…

• Scale AI opens Dubai hub expanding Gulf presence

• Oman launches Autonomous Production Programme

• Dubai Chambers launches AI agent marketplace

• Dubai AI Campus targets one thousand companies

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You can also listen to this podcast via the following services

• Amazon Alexa

• Amazon Music

• Anghami

• Deezer

• Soundcloud

• Spotify

• YouTube

Want to stop receiving email notifications for this podcast?

Or to sign-up for email notifications for this podcast? Navigate to your Settings page, scroll down to Subscriptions, click on Middle East AI News and change your Notifications preferences. You’re find more help here.

Note: this is an experimental podcast using a clone of my voice created by AI. Unfortunately, the voice clone is prone to some errors, including mispronunciations of some Arabic words and place names. However, I’m always working to improve this.

When conflict disrupted operations across the region earlier this year, the organisations that adapted fastest tended to share one trait. They had already automated a meaningful share of their work. The pattern held across the banks, airlines, government entities and logistics companies we work with.

Airlines had to rebook and reroute passengers at short notice. Contact centres absorbed a surge in demand without adding headcount. Where processes were already automated and coordinated, teams could take on more of that load, and several were already layering AI onto workflows that were running reliably. Organisations starting from scratch had much less to work with.

AI is key to enabling enterprises to scale their operations fast to build resilience and business continuity. It can help enterprises respond faster, but its value depends on how effectively it is leveraged to perform to its maximum potential, returning the most valuable ROI. For GCC organisations pursuing ambitious AI agendas, business orchestration - the layer that coordinates AI agents, robots, people and systems across long-running, end-to-end business processes- is what helps convert AI potential to measurable business results.

The work around the model

Conversations about agentic AI with business leaders usually start with the model, including which one to choose and how to scale it. Yet choosing the model is often the more straightforward part. The harder work lies in connecting AI to core systems, coordinating workflows that move between people and applications, and keeping control of what happens at each stage.

A 2026 UiPath survey of 590 C-suite and IT leaders at large enterprises across the US, Europe and Asia found that only 31% consider AI fully embedded in their business, while 11% remain at the pilot stage. The most commonly cited obstacles were data quality (38%), integrating agents with existing workflows and systems (37%), and governance and compliance (33%).

Consider a bank that runs a successful AI pilot in its finance team. If that pilot cannot connect to existing approval chains, legacy platforms and other departments, scaling it across the business becomes considerably harder. Multiply that across departments and an organisation can accumulate promising experiments without seeing a corresponding improvement in how it operates.

AI can produce answers, but turning them into business outcomes requires agents, software robots, APIs and people to work through processes from start to finish, with governance built in. Business orchestration provides that connecting layer, allowing enterprises to coordinate work across different technologies, maintain visibility and manage workflows when conditions change or something goes wrong. Only 29% of organisations in the same survey have fully embedded orchestration. Among them, 89% reported that their agentic AI projects met or exceeded their return-on-investment expectations. For GCC enterprises, many of which operate a mix of legacy platforms and newer technologies, the priority should be to connect and coordinate these environments before adding more intelligence to them.

Every agent needs a job description, a manager and an exit plan

Orchestration becomes even more important as organisations move from deploying a handful of AI agents to potentially managing hundreds or thousands across different business functions.

Agentic AI is advancing faster than many organisations can keep up with, while expectations of full autonomy are running ahead of what enterprises can safely deploy. Governance is struggling to keep pace, and what may seem manageable with a handful of agents can become a serious operational risk when hundreds are operating across the business.

Enterprises need to manage agents with the same discipline they apply to their workforce. Employees are onboarded, given credentials, supervised and monitored, and their access is revoked when they leave. Agents require similar controls, particularly because they cannot exercise human judgement or take responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

Every agent should have a clearly defined job, with specific tasks, permissions and boundaries around what it can do. It also needs a designated manager who understands where it operates, monitors its activities and determines when human intervention is required. Equally important is an exit plan, ensuring agents can be retired and their access revoked when processes change, their performance falls short or they are no longer needed.

These controls cannot operate effectively in isolation. Enterprises need a central orchestration layer that shows which agents are operating, what systems they can access, how their work connects to other processes and when human oversight is required.

In banking, for example, know-your-customer checks, compliance reviews and trade finance combine high volumes and established rules with frequent exceptions that require judgement. An agent can collect documents, flag discrepancies and prepare a recommendation, while decisions with material consequences remain subject to appropriate human authority and oversight. Orchestration coordinates these activities and maintains an audit trail of every step, whether completed by a person or an agent. For regulated organisations, these processes must also meet applicable national data residency and sovereignty requirements from the outset.

Start with the outcome, then orchestrate the work

Finance, procurement and HR offer a practical starting point, because many organisations already automate parts of them. A company with an established financial reconciliation process, for instance, has a foundation on which to introduce agentic capabilities. The value will come from connecting those capabilities to the systems, approvals and people around the process.

For business leaders, the starting point should always be the outcome rather than the technology. This means identifying a small number of high-value processes, understanding how they operate and addressing existing inefficiencies before introducing AI. Getting the data foundations right, building governance into the process and establishing orchestration across the workflow should follow. Buying technology first and searching for a use case later risks creating a fragmented collection of platforms without delivering meaningful business value.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia share a strong, government-led commitment to AI, although they are approaching adoption from different starting points. The UAE started investing in automation earlier, and many organisations there are now scaling what they have built. e&, which has worked with UiPath since 2018, now plans to introduce AI-led capabilities such as process mining and document processing across its internal operations. Saudi Arabia is building new capabilities quickly and at scale, guided by Vision 2030, data sovereignty requirements and investment in local talent. Much of today’s agentic AI activity there is concentrated in government, utilities and aviation, though the private sector has strong foundations of its own, with some of UiPath’s largest automation deployments in the Middle East at Saudi financial institutions. Agentic adoption in that sector is expected to accelerate. Whatever their starting point, enterprises in both markets will need the same foundations to turn national ambition into results across the business.

The organisations that were better placed to handle this year’s disruptions had invested in automation foundations long before they were tested. As enterprises across the Gulf move towards increasingly autonomous operations, orchestration will turn those investments into coordinated, resilient business operations.

Join me at UiPath FUSION Dubai on 2 November at the Museum of the Future, where we’ll explore how enterprises can scale agentic AI while building the resilience and governance needed for the future.

Karl Crowther is Vice President - Middle East Africa, India and Southeast Asia at UiPath

Get in touch with UiPath

• Meet UiPath at UiPath FUSION Dubai on November 2nd, 2026

Sponsored content. Views expressed are those of the author.

#Qatar #investment - San Francisco-based AI data and applications company Scale AI has signed an agreement with Qatari master developer United Development Company (UDC) to establish a long-term office space at The Pearl in Doha. The expanded Doha office covers nearly 2,000 square metres and supports an in-country team has grown to nearly 100 people since 2025. The move builds on a five-year partnership with Qatar’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) to improve healthcare, justice, education and tourism services.

SO WHAT? - Scale AI is committing to Qatar with property, people and a long lease on its future. Qatar was the company’s first Gulf market, so this is the clear sign of how the company expects to grow in the region. Scale’s near-100 strong Qatar team, of which half are in engineering roles, suggests rapid delivery of solutions and services to an expanding customer base. This is also the scale of team that is well placed to bolster delivery across the region as Riyadh and Dubai hubs build-out.

KEY POINTS:

• Scale AI signed an agreement with United Development Company (UDC) this week to establish a long-term office space at The Pearl in Doha. The company also celebrated the official launch of its Doha office with partners and clients.

• The expanded office at The Pearl covers nearly 2,000 square metres. UDC has developed The Pearl into a waterfront community combining workplaces, homes, hospitality, dining, retail and leisure.

• Scale AI’s Doha team has grown to nearly 100 employees since its partnership with Qatar was announced in 2025. Close to 50 percent are technical engineers.

• The office builds on a five-year partnership with the State of Qatar and MCIT, announced at Web Summit Qatar 2025. The team works across healthcare, justice, education and higher education, tourism and wider government.

• The ALIF programme, launched by MCIT with Scale AI and delivered through the Qatar Digital Academy, gives hands-on AI training to technical and non-technical government employees. Nearly 6,000 have been trained so far.

• Scale AI says its work in Qatar covers evaluating performance, supporting human oversight and building the skills to operate and improve systems over time. It has shared examples ranging from legislative drafting to national recruitment.

• Through Scale Labs, the company develops benchmarks and evaluations, including Humanity’s Last Exam, built with the Center for AI Safety. It has also partnered with government AI evaluation bodies in the US, UK, Korea and Singapore.

• Scale AI links the investment to Qatar’s Digital Agenda 2030, which combines digital infrastructure, government services, innovation and skills in a push towards a knowledge-based economy.

ZOOM OUT - Earlier in the week, Scale AI launched its UAE entity at the Dubai AI Festival. Registered at Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), Scale’s Dubai operation already employs more than 30 staff. It follows an October MoU with G42 group company Presight on agentic AI for government and enterprise customers. With the opening of the Dubai office, the company now has a base in each of the Gulf’s three largest digital economies. The two launches in one week suggest Scale AI plans to grow in the region through permanent offices and local teams.

[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]

Source: Scale AI, MEAN, various

Read more about Scale AI:

• Scale AI opens in Dubai, its third Gulf hub (Middle East AI News)

• Qatar signs 5-year deal with Scale AI (Middle East AI News)

• Scale AI to open Riyadh office, following regional deals (Middle East AI News)

#UAE #AIPolicy - Dubai Future Foundation (DFF) has launched a new AI Sandbox through Sandbox Dubai, its regulatory testing platform. Startups, SMEs, technology firms and government entities can now test AI-native products in real-world conditions and discover regulatory hurdles and solutions. The goals of the new initiative are to help developers clear the regulatory barriers that keep AI solutions from reaching the market. The AI Sandbox promises firms tailored guidance and technical expertise, while gathering evidence to shape future policy. Applications close on December 18th.

SO WHAT? - Many AI projects stall before deployment and the cause often comes back to regulations that were put in place long before the technology existed. Dubai’s new AI Sandbox puts regulators and developers in the same room to find out where the rules need to change. The sandbox process will alo consider exemptions where authorities approve them. If Dubai’s AI Sandbox produces clear rulings quickly, then it will certainly strengthen the emirate’s pitch as a place to commercialise AI.

KEY POINTS:

• Dubai Future Foundation (DFF) has launched the AI Sandbox through Sandbox Dubai to help local and international companies overcome regulatory and policy barriers that stop promising AI solutions moving from experimentation into real-world deployment.

• AI Sandbox participants will receive technical, policy and commercial expertise, plus tailored regulatory guidance. Depending on the use case and requirements of AI products and platforms, this may include exploring regulatory exemptions, which remain subject to approval by the relevant authorities.

• Regulators will use practical testing to assess emerging applications, identify risks and gather evidence. This will show where existing frameworks may need to evolve while keeping appropriate safeguards in place.

• Sandbox applications are open to firms building AI-native solutions in education, healthcare, transport and mobility, logistics, tourism, media and government services, among other sectors. Applicants must submit by 18 December 2026.

• Eligible solutions must be at a minimum viable product stage or beyond and show readiness for commercialisation. Applicants must also have the potential to generate evidence that can inform policy and regulatory development.

• The launch aligns with research cited by the World Economic Forum, which found 74 percent of companies have yet to move their AI initiatives beyond experimentation. Regulation, data access and the application of existing policies are among the obstacles cited by the Forum.

• Microsoft’s Global AI Diffusion Report ranks the UAE first globally, with 73.3 percent of its working-age population using AI, against 18.8 percent worldwide.

• Sandbox Dubai has already been applied to the gig economy, healthcare and real estate. It forms part of the D33 Agenda, which aims to double Dubai’s economy over the next decade.

[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]

Source: DFF

• Scale AI opens Dubai hub expanding Gulf presence (Middle East AI News)

• Oman launches Autonomous Production Programme (Middle East AI News)

• Dubai Chambers launches AI agent marketplace (Middle East AI News)

Middle East AI News is a proud media partner of AIDC Expo and Cairo ICT. Register for November’s AI and cloud computing event here.

Stories that you may have missed…

• Dubai AI Campus targets one thousand companies

• Alpha Dhabi commits one billion dollars to AI

• Legaline launches AI powered virtual courtroom in Dubai

• Oman consortium plans three billion dollar AI campus

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• Amazon Music

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Note: this is an experimental podcast using a clone of my voice created by AI. Unfortunately, the voice clone is prone to some errors, including mispronunciations of some Arabic words and place names. However, I’m always working to improve this.

#SaudiArabia #investment - Snowflake has announced a projected $300 million (about SAR 1.125 billion) investment in Saudi Arabia through 2030. The US data cloud company also formally inaugurated its Riyadh-based regional headquarters for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa (META). Working with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), it will expand local hiring and its partner network, launch two more Saudi cloud regions in the second half of 2026, and train up to 25,000 learners in data and AI skills by 2030.

SO WHAT? - Data residency and sovereignty has become a pre-requisite for Saudi enterprises and rapid adoption of AI has made that demand increasingly urgent. Snowflake announced general availability of its AI Data Cloud via Google’s Dammam cloud region in December 2024. The company is now getting ready to launch two additional cloud regions in Saudi Arabia on top of the Google Cloud service, giving customers greater flexibility and choice in sovereign cloud services.

KEY POINTS:

• Snowflake, the AI Data Cloud company listed on the NYSE, announced a projected $300 million investment in Saudi Arabia through 2030. The figure comes from an independent IDC analysis of Snowflake’s projected economic impact and customer value in the Kingdom.

• Snowflake formally inaugurated its Middle East, Turkey and Africa regional headquarters in Riyadh, which was established in 2024. The headquarters will keep growing its local team, building the regional partner ecosystem and widening broader operations in the Kingdom.

• Snowflake will add two cloud regions in Saudi Arabia ‘in the second half of 2026’, alongside its existing Google Cloud Dammam region. The multi-cloud setup is designed to help customers meet data residency and sovereignty requirements.

• Snowflake and MCIT will jointly deliver the One Million Minds programme, which aims to upskill up to 25,000 people over five years. Training combines virtual and in-person sessions on the Snowflake platform, with certificates and real-world data and AI projects.

• The programme will bring Snowflake Academia to the Middle East for the first time, helping universities add current data and AI technologies to their curricula. Participants also get mentorship through the Saudi Arabia Data and AI Community.

• MCIT, which supports technology companies investing in the local market, will connect Snowflake with local entities and help it scale operations. The ministry is pursuing a cloud-first policy to drive digital transformation and local skills development.

• The announcement cites General Authority for Statistics figures showing AI use among Saudi businesses rose 20 percent year on year in 2025. Snowflake argues this increases demand for secure, governed access to enterprise data.

• Snowflake’s Saudi customers include Red Sea Global, O3sigma, Zahid Group, Almarai, Foodics, Rime and Jeeny. Globally, the company has more than 14,500 customers, including hundreds of the world’s largest companies.

• Snowflake launched in Saudi Arabia in December 2024 with the Riyadh headquarters and general availability on Google Cloud, in response to the Kingdom’s Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL) of 2023.

ZOOM OUT - NYSE-listed US cloud data and enterprise AI company Snowflake has moved purposefully from data warehousing into AI. Its AI Data Cloud runs on AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, and now carries Snowflake Cortex AI intelligence and agent tools. The company expects about $6.07 billion for the current fiscal year, which ends January 31st, 2027. Meanwhile, existing customers currently expand their usage by around 125 percent per year (net revenue retention), and a five-year, $6 billion AWS partnership backs further growth. More than 14,500 customers use Snowflake, and the Middle East is a fast-growing part of that base.

[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]

Source: Snowflake

#UAE #AgenticAI - Dubai Chambers, the umbrella body for Dubai’s private sector, this week launched Chamber AI Hub, the world’s first chamber-led marketplace for agentic AI. Chamber members can now subscribe to 22 ready-made AI agents covering compliance, procurement, operations, finance, sales, human resources and logistics. Dubai Chambers aims to reach more than 295,000 private sector companies via the new hub and expand its offering to 100 AI agents over the next two years. The Chamber AI Hub launch follows directives from Dubai’s Crown Prince, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

SO WHAT? - Despite the increased available of low-code and no-code platforms, relatively few SMEs actually build AI agents themselves. So a Chamber AI Hub that sells them off the shelf helps to remove that barrier for a large share of Dubai’s economy. The target of 295,000 companies is ambitious, and the 14,000 firms in training are the first real test of whether members actually adopt and use the agents. No subscription prices, funding figures or supplier names have been disclosed, so it’s too early to judge uptake or value. If adoption follows, the initiaitve could give other business chambers in the region a model to copy.

KEY POINTS:

• Dubai Chambers launched Chamber AI Hub this week at Dubai AI Festival, describing it as the world’s first chamber-led agentic AI marketplace. The hub lets companies operating in Dubai access ready-to-use AI agents for a wide range of administrative and operational tasks.

• The Chamber AI Hub currently offers 22 specialised AI agents across seven functional areas. Users can choose from agents built for compliance, procurement, operations, finance, sales, human resources and logistics.

• Dubai Chambers plans to grow the marketplace to 100 specialised AI agents over two years. The programme aims to enable more than 295,000 private sector companies in Dubai.

• The launch implements directives from Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of The Executive Council of Dubai, to accelerate agentic AI adoption across the emirate’s private sector. The UAE government has given a lot of focus to agentic AI usage in the public sector, but Dubai wants to make sure that the private sector is not left behind.

• Specialised training tracks, recently launched by Dubai Chambers, will enable and train 14,000 Dubai companies to use agentic AI in their administrative and operational processes.

• The programme will also support the growth of companies that develop and use agentic AI solutions. It promotes knowledge-sharing and aims to build institutional capabilities across the Dubai Chambers ecosystem.

• Dubai Chambers describes the packages as carrying competitive benefits for members, but has not published pricing, the names of the companies supplying the agents, or a launch timetable for the remaining 78 agents.

ZOOM OUT - Dubai Chambers has built this programme in sequence. In September it created an Executive Committee for Agentic AI and launched Dubai Chambers Academy, an e-learning platform offering training tracks to more than 14,000 member companies. The marketplace now gives those firms agents to put the training to use. Incubators for Agentic AI companies and support for local developers are also planned, which could supply the agents of the future. Dubai is trying to ensure that training, supply and demand are all being built together.

[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]

Source: Dubai Chamber, Dubai Media Office

Read more about Dubai AI initiatives:

• Dubai AI Campus targets 1,000 firms and 5,000 jobs (Middle East AI News)

• Dubai launches AED2.5M Create AI Agents Championship (Middle East AI News)

• Dubai launches agentic AI accelerator for government (Middle East AI News)

• Dubai government adopts AI productivity system (Middle East AI News)

• Dubai Chambers, NASSCOM partner on Agentic AI (Middle East AI News)

#Oman #energy - Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), the Sultanate’s main oil and gas producer has launched an Autonomous Production Programme combining AI, drones, robotics and real-time analytics. The Omani energy group also unveiled a digital twin project, its first agentic AI tools and a five-year digital well construction partnership with oilfield services and technology firms SLB and Halliburton. PDOs automation goals are higher reliability, better safety and lower operating costs. PDO did not disclose investment figures or a timetable.

SO WHAT? - PDO is the producer behind more than 70 percent of Oman’s crude output and nearly all of its gas, so how it runs its fields matters to the national budget. The new Autonomous Production Programme moves the energy company from reacting to faults towards predicting them and, eventually, acting on them autonomously, although under human oversight. No targets for costs or savings have yet been published. However, a producer with 8,000 active wells has plenty of data to put to work and automating practically any process 8,000 times is bound to have an impact on on both efficiency and costs.

KEY POINTS:

• Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) officially launched its Autonomous Production Programme at the company’s Autonomous and Digital Transformation Day yesterday. The event was held under the auspices of Abdullah Salim Al Harthy, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance.

• PDO’s Autonomous Production Programme combines AI, advanced process control, real-time data analytics, drones and robotics. It aims to move operations from reactive problem-solving to predictive, and increasingly autonomous, management of production assets.

• The energy group will introduce autonomous decision-making and actions in stages, within established operational controls and under human oversight. The company expects better reliability, safer operations, optimised production and lower operating costs.

• The digital twin project will link physical assets with digital models, live operational data and advanced analytics. It is intended to give operators greater visibility of asset performance and support faster, predictive decisions.

• PDO announced its first agentic AI initiatives, building on ADAM, its internal generative AI assistant. The tools will go beyond retrieving information to supporting decisions and carrying out defined tasks within governance and control frameworks.

• PDO signed a five-year partnership with SLB and Halliburton covering seven integrated digital capabilities that link subsurface planning with well execution. It will also fund specialised training, graduate opportunities and knowledge transfer for Omani talent. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• PDO signed a Memorandum of Collaboration with Omani technology company Onsor Technologies to support the adoption of locally developed computing devices across its operations, creating a route for Omani products into an industrial setting.

• PDO also introduced Wisal, a digital solution designed to give employees a more connected and integrated working experience across the company.

• The announcements form part of PDO’s Journey of Transformation and Ignite Digital initiative, which followed its Hackathon 2.0 in June 2026. PDO’s digital transformation goals support Oman Vision 2040 and its goal of a competitive, innovation-driven digital economy.

[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]

Source: PDO, Oman media

Read more about Oman AI:

• Oman consortium plans $3 billion, 400MW AI data centre (Middle East AI News)

• Yamna signs £1B+ Oman AI data centre deal (Middle East AI News)

• Oman’s O-Green targets 200MW of AI data centres (Middle East AI News)

• Omani AI startups almost double in one year (Middle East AI News)

• Otech and DeepAstra launch sovereign AI platform (Middle East AI News)

#UAE #investment - Scale AI this week announced its new UAE entity registered at Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), completing a swift two-year expansion that anchors the San Francisco-based AI firm inside the GCC’s three largest digital economies. Launched during the Dubai AI Festival, the new operation brings Scale AI’s regional team to over 130 staff across the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, positioning the $29 billion company to supply training data, evaluation frameworks, and full-stack systems directly to the region's top sovereign and enterprise entities.

SO WHAT? — Scale AI took under two years to expand its Gulf footprint from Qatar, into both Saudi Arabia and the UAE. While few commercial details have been made public outside of Qatar—where its five-year Ministry of CIT contract has already delivered daily-use public applications and trained nearly 6,000 people—Scale AI’s rapid regional headcount growth to over 130 staff signals strong confidence in its Middle East business pipeline. Early partnerships with the G42 group could prove instrumental in unlocking UAE public-sector and enterprise opportunities, positioning the San Francisco firm to continue building regional momentum.

KEY POINTS:

• Scale AI formally launched its UAE entity at the Dubai AI Festival this week, which was registered at Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) in June under the name of Scale AI ME Limited.

• More than 30 people now work for Scale AI in the UAE, with a total Gulf headcount which now exceeds 130 (according to the latest LinkedIn data). The company opened its first regional operations in Qatar in early 2025, adding an office in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia later the same year.

• Founded in 2016, Scale AI provides the training data, model evaluations and red-teaming, and full-stack AI systems that help frontier labs, enterprises and governments build, deploy and oversee reliable AI.

• In Qatar, Scale AI says it has trained or upskilled nearly 6,000 people, and government applications it built there are now in everyday use by the public.

• Qatar’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology signed a five-year deal with Scale AI in February 2025 to improve government services. The agreement covers more than 50 AI applications for public sector use.

• Meanwhile, under an MoU signed earlier this month, Scale AI and Presight will explore building agentic AI applications for government and enterprise customers in the UAE and other agreed markets. Successful outputs could become repeatable offerings for government entities across the region.

• The two companies plan to pair agent development with evaluation frameworks that keep checking accuracy, reliability and performance once agents are live. They will also examine how simulation can test emergency scenarios and decisions before real-world deployment.

• Last year, Scale AI signed an agreement with another G42 company, Inception (now Inception42), covering enterprise AI solutions and industry-specific evaluation datasets.

• The company lists Meta, Cisco, Instacart, Nvidia, Cohere, OpenAI, Microsoft and Time as clients, along with the US Air Force and US Army.

ZOOM OUT - Scale AI is a San Francisco-based data and AI applications company that grew from $250 million in revenue in 2022 to an estimated $2 billion in 2025. Meta’s $14.3 billion investment for a 49 percent stake lifted its valuation above $29 billion, though Google, OpenAI and Microsoft left afterwards. The company is moving from data labelling into higher-margin applications for enterprises and governments, and its international public-sector revenue doubled in 2025. It expects that to double again in 2026, no doubt with a significant contribution from its growing Gulf business.

[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]

Source: Scale AI, MEAN, various

Read more about Scale AI:

• Qatar signs 5-year deal with Scale AI (Middle East AI News)

• Scale AI to open Riyadh office, following regional deals (Middle East AI News)

• Dubai AI Campus targets one thousand companies (Middle East AI News)

• Alpha Dhabi commits one billion dollars to AI (Middle East AI News)

• Legaline launches AI powered virtual courtroom in Dubai (Middle East AI News)

Middle East AI News is a proud media partner of AIDC Expo and Cairo ICT. Register for November’s AI and cloud computing event here.

Stories that you may have missed…

• Oman consortium plans three billion dollar AI campus

• Yamna signs £1 billion Oman AI infrastructure agreement

• Brookfield opens Doha office after backing major AI venture

• GCC AI adoption soars but training lags behind

Streaming Services

You can also listen to this podcast via the following services

• Amazon Alexa

• Amazon Music

• Anghami

• Deezer

• Soundcloud

• Spotify

• YouTube

Want to stop receiving email notifications for this podcast?

Or to sign-up for email notifications for this podcast? Navigate to your Settings page, scroll down to Subscriptions, click on Middle East AI News and change your Notifications preferences. You’re find more help here.

Note: this is an experimental podcast using a clone of my voice created by AI. Unfortunately, the voice clone is prone to some errors, including mispronunciations of some Arabic words and place names. However, I’m always working to improve this.

#UAE #AI - Dubai’s Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed has approved new goals for Dubai AI Campus, targeting more than 1,000 AI companies and the creation of over 5,000 skilled jobs by 2030. Part of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), the campus has attracted over 500 companies since May 2024. They have raised more than AED 1 billion ($270m) from private equity and venture capital funds. The announcement came at the opening of the third Dubai AI Festival, which is taking place at Dubai World Trade Centre.

SO WHAT? - Dubai AI Campus hit its 2028 company target about two and a half years ahead of schedule, however, regional upheaval this year has brought many business plans and projections into question. So, the new goals announce this week are not only targets, but are also a public commitment from the government that Dubai’s AI sector growth will hold. The jump from 2,000 jobs to 5,000 and from 500 companies to 1,000 is ambitious, under any circumstances, but is intended to reconfirm Dubai’s leadership position. As a result, investors and AI firms now also have a clear benchmark to measure the emirate’s progress against.

KEY POINTS

• Dubai’s Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, who chairs Dubai Future Foundation’s board of trustees, approved 2030 targets for Dubai AI Campus after a briefing from Arif Amiri, chief executive of the DIFC Authority, at the Dubai AI Festival’s opening at Dubai World Trade Centre.

• Since launching in May 2024, Dubai AI Campus has drawn more than 500 AI companies. That beats its original five-year target for company numbers and investment volumes, which was originally set for 2028.

• Those companies have secured over AED 1 billion ($270m) from private equity and venture capital funds. The campus has also helped create more than 2,000 specialised technology jobs.

• A new purpose-built Dubai AI Campus building will rise in the DIFC Zabeel District expansion. It spans 100,000 square feet and is described as the world’s first facility of its kind.

• The new building will include GPU-ready systems, secure AI development zones, digital twin environments and AI-powered building systems. Modular, lab-ready floors will let government bodies and companies develop, pilot and validate AI tools before wider rollout.

• The extension will also feature an AI Experience Centre that will showcase applications across sectors, including work from the AI Labs, campus companies and citywide pilots. It will be open to residents, students, visitors, delegations and investors.

• The third Dubai AI Festival runs until 27 October under the theme ‘Where Intelligence Meets Opportunity’. Festival organisers expect over 20,000 attendees from more than 100 countries, plus 150 speakers, 500 investors and 200 exhibitors.

ZOOM OUT - DIFC announced this year that it intends to become the world’s first AI-native financial centre, with a plan to generate a projected $3.5 billion (AED 12.9 billion) in economic value and create 25,000 jobs. The international financial centre developed its first five-year AI strategy in 2023. Plans now stretch to rules for AI agents and robotics, and an AI-native city district by 2030. It also aims to beat other top ten financial centres on start-up density, venture funding and unicorn creation. The Dubai AI Campus is the first full-stack piece of DIFC’s overall AI plan.

[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]

Source: Dubai Media Office, DIFC

Read more about DIFC:

• Dubai startup launches verifiable AI inference service (Middle East AI News)

• DIFC gets first AI-native asset manager (Middle East AI News)

• Dubai-based Algebra AI nets $7 million funding (Middle East AI News)

• Nvidia challenger Positron opens global office at DIFC (Middle East AI News)

• DIFC set to become first AI-native financial centre (Middle East AI News)

#UAE #law - UAE-built AI-native legal platform Legaline Platform has launched Meta Legal Space, which it calls MENA’s first AI-powered mock trial, at Dubai AI Festival. Within the new 3D platform, law students and trainees can argue cases before an AI judge, with AI clerks, witnesses and experts, and against AI or human opposing counsel. The simulation can run cases under UAE onshore law, Dubai’s financial free zone DIFC or Abu Dhabi’s financial free zone ADGM. Registration is free for students and the platform is being offered to law schools and training providers across the region.

SO WHAT? - Now law students and young lawyers can now practice court room tactics in a virtual courtroom against human or AI adversaries. Legaline’s simulator gives regional law schools a rehearsal room that ‘moot courts’ usually reserve for finalists. Every student gets a seat, and the practice happens under the law they will actually argue. Users get to specify their jurisdiction and choose from a library of test court cases. To make the experience as lifelike as possible, witnesses wobble, judges interrupt and objections are raised. However, since this is all virtual, there is no risk and rookie mistakes cost nothing.

KEY POINTS:

• Legaline Platform launched Meta Legal Space at Dubai AI Festival this week, a virtual 3D platform where where law students argue real cases against AI, or against each other.

• Trainees enter a customisable virtual courtroom and argue before an AI judge. Opposing counsel can be AI or a classmate, and every role, including the clerk, can be filled by a person or by AI.

• Each AI witness comes with a background, profession and manner. Honesty, reliability and composure are set before the hearing, and every witness withholds one fact that the trainee must draw out, while answers stay within the case file.

• Before a hearing, trainees pick a format (litigation, arbitration or mediation) and a legal framework: UAE onshore, DIFC or ADGM. Practising lawyers write every case, and each is rated for difficulty and duration.

• The launch library covers commercial, civil and labour cases. Examples include a supply contract breach, a construction defects dispute and an unfair dismissal claim before the DIFC Small Claims Tribunal. More cases will follow as practitioners contribute.

• After each session, trainees receive a performance report scoring argumentation, procedural compliance and objection handling. Top results appear on a leaderboard, and every session is recorded for later review.

• A licensed practitioner from the Legaline Platform network can take the judge’s seat and score a session live. Meta Legal Space cases work both for supervised classroom teaching and for private rehearsal.

• Students create their own free Legaline Platform account and choose a first case straight away, while law schools and legal training providers across the region are being offered access.

• Meta Legal Space joins Legaline’s AI tutor, and an AI Research Assistant covering 35 legal areas. Meanwhile, Legaline Docs drafts contracts, letters and pleadings in around 15 seconds. Legaline’s total data corpus holds over 60,000 passages across 33 jurisdictions.

[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]

Source: Legaline

Read more about Ai in justice and law:

• Abu Dhabi launches AI platform for judges (Middle East AI News)

• Abu Dhabi to launch world’s first AI Judicial Platform (Middle East AI News)

#UAE #investment - Investment holding company Alpha Dhabi Holding (ADX: ALPHADHABI) has signed an agreement to commit $1bn (about AED 3.67bn) to Alpha Wave III, a global fund managed by US investment firm Alpha Wave Global. The fund is expected to invest in AI and high-growth technology businesses worldwide. The commitment follows Alpha Dhabi’s participation in Alpha Wave Ventures II, which gave it indirect exposure to SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic. The commitment to invest remains subject to any applicable approvals.

SO WHAT? - Alpha Dhabi is recycling its returns from the last Alpha Wave fund into the next one, which says it likes what it’s seen so far, which began with an experimental Alpha Wave Incubation fund launched in 2019. The new funds predecessor Alpha Wave Ventures II (managed by Chimera Capital and Alpha Wave Global) targeted a 3x to 5x return on its investments and closed its second round of investment in January 2022 at $10 bilion. Alpha Wave’s $1 billion investment in Alpha Wave III buys exposure to AI companies without Alpha Dhabi having to pick individual winners.

KEY POINTS:

• Alpha Dhabi Holding, listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange as ALPHADHABI, has signed an agreement to commit $1 billion (c. AED 3.67b) to Alpha Wave III. The investment remains subject to any applicable approvals.

• Alpha Wave III is a global fund registered as Alpha Wave III, LP in Cayman Islands (LEI 2549007P3RXD5ASEKY38) and managed by Alpha Wave Global (formerly Falcon Edge Capital). It is expected to invest in AI and high-growth businesses developing and applying transformative technologies.

• The commitment follows Alpha Dhabi’s participation in Alpha Wave Ventures II, through which the group gained indirect exposure to companies including SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic.

• Alpha Dhabi will deploy its capital over time in line with capital calls and the fund’s investment programme. Value is expected to be realised through distributions and exits over the fund’s life.

• Alpha Dhabi intends to fund the investment from cash distributions it receives from Alpha Wave Ventures II, plus existing resources. The financial impact will be recognised over time.

• Alpha Wave’s returns will depend on the performance and valuation of the underlying investments. Alpha Dhabi says the commitment is meant to support portfolio diversification and long-term risk-adjusted returns.

• Alpha Dhabi manages more than 250 public and private investments across 45 countries, in sectors including AI, real estate, industry, healthcare and energy. It employs about 95,000 people.

• Alpha Dhabi says it will make further disclosures as required under applicable laws and ADX rules.

ZOOM OUT - Alpha Wave Global has been working closely with Abu Dhabi for some years. In 2019, when the investment firm was still called Falcon Edge Capital, it formed Abu Dhabi Catalyst Partners, a $1 billion joint venture with sovereign wealth fund Mubadala. Shortly after that, Alpha Wave launched the $300 million Alpha Wave Incubation fund, backed by investment from ADQ. The fund targeted early-stage Indian and South East Asian start-ups and invested on a precondition that investments set-up operations in Abu Dhabi. It backed more than 20 Indian AI and emerging tech firms that all subsequently registered in the emirate including EMB Global, EkAnek (Foxy), Entropik Tech, Hippo Video, SenseHawk and Verloop.

In December 2021, the company rebranded to Alpha Wave Global and launched the Alpha Wave Ventures II fund targeting $10-15 billion of investments in global scale-ups, with a ticket size of $10 million up to $150 million. The Alpha Wave Ventures II fund did not require reciprocal investment in Abu Dhabi, but nevertheless a number of fund investments have close ties to the emirate and/or offices there.

[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]

Source: Alpha Wave

Read more about Abu Dhabi-backed AI funds:

• Presight & Shorooq launch $100 million AI fund (Middle East AI News)

• MGX joins consortium to invest $100b in AI infrastructure (Middle East AI News)

• Abu Dhabi forms global technology investment company (Middle East AI News)

• Oman consortium plans three billion dollar AI campus (Middle East AI News)

• Yamna signs £1 billion Oman AI infrastructure agreement (Middle East AI News)

• Brookfield opens Doha office after backing major AI venture (Middle East AI News)

Middle East AI News is a proud media partner of AIDC Expo and Cairo ICT. Register for November’s AI and cloud computing event here.

Stories that you may have missed…

• GCC AI adoption soars but training lags behind

• G42 signs five Greek AI partnership agreements

• HUMAIN expands NVIDIA AI compute capacity

• UAE smartphone users to drive agentic network demand

Streaming Services

You can also listen to this podcast via the following services

• Amazon Alexa

• Amazon Music

• Anghami

• Deezer

• Soundcloud

• Spotify

• YouTube

Want to stop receiving email notifications for this podcast?

Or to sign-up for email notifications for this podcast? Navigate to your Settings page, scroll down to Subscriptions, click on Middle East AI News and change your Notifications preferences. You’re find more help here.

Note: this is an experimental podcast using a clone of my voice created by AI. Unfortunately, the voice clone is prone to some errors, including mispronunciations of some Arabic words and place names. However, I’m always working to improve this.