Bayanat, Yahsat to vote on merger; New $180m Oman tech fund

Middle East AI News weekly digest...

Good morning!

Welcome to this week’s Middle East AI News!

No shortage of news this week, so I’ll make my intro short to save space! View via the website to make sure you see all the stories.

Satellite groups Bayanat and Yahsat will vote on their proposed merger today, which would create a $4 billion group called SPACE42.

Scroll down for all the latest news, including news on funding, robotics, AI policy and Saturday’s augural ASPIRE Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League event!

I’m hosting a great Middle East AI News LIVE - THURSDAY DEEP DIVE on LinkedIn later today at 12 noon KSA | 1pm UAE time | 9am GMT!

I’ll be talking to Anton Alexander, CTO of Dammam-based technology company Watad about the company’s Arabic-English bilingual LLM, trained exclusively on Saudi data!

Click here to attend today’s THURSDAY DEEP DIVE!

As always, thanks for reading!

/Carrington

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Bayanat, Yahsat to vote on merger today

#UAE #satellite - Bayanat (ADX:BAYANAT) and Yahsat (ADX:YAHSAT) will hold simultaneous general assemblies today, to vote on the proposed merger of the two companies to form a $4 billion space and satellite group to be called SPACE42. The planned merger was first announced in December. (AGBI)

Funding

ADQ, OIA launch new Oman technology fund

#Oman #UAE #funding - Abu Dhabi investment and holding group ADQ, and Oman Investment Authority, have launched a $180 million technology-focused investment fund. The Jasoor Fund invest in high growth tech sectors, within Oman and across the region. (Emirates News Agency)

Prosperity7 plans early stage India investments

#Saudi #India #funding - Saudi Aramco's venture capital arm, and investor in next gen technologies Prosperity7, is actively seeking early-stage investments in India. According to media reports, the VC plans to set aside around $200-350 million aiming for a portfolio of around 15-20 early-stage ventures. (Business Standard)

6G

UAE plans 6G rollout by 2030

#UAE #6G - UAE plans to roll out 6G before the year 2030, according to a new 6G roadmap unveiled by the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority. Launched yesterday. The strategy includes plans to invest in 6G research and development concerning the advancement. (BusinessWire)

GenAI

Global prompt contest in Dubai next month

#UAE #GenAI - The inaugural Global Prompt Engineering Championship will take place at Dubai's Museum of the Future next month, on May 20th and 21st. With total prize money of AED 1 million on offer, the championship will test prompt engineers in the categories of Coding, Art, and Literature. (Emirates News Agency)

Robotics

PROVEN Robotics launches OrionStar Mini service robot

#Saudi #robotics - Riyadh-headquatered Proven Robotics has announced the OrionStar Mini, an AI service robot designed to create engaging and interactive experiences, with an open development platform. The new service robot provides customer information, smart guiding and can coordinate with other similar robot models. (Zawya)

EVs

WAJA forms EV joint venture in Egypt

#Egypt #Saudi #EVs - Saudi diversified group WAJA will form a joint venture firm in Egypt to produce and manufacture electric vehicles, with the Egyptian defence group Arab Organization for Industrialization. The new company will manufacture both for the Egyptian market and export. (Arab News)

R&D

Abu Dhabi team wins MIT RF challenge

#UAE #R&D - A team from Khalifa University and Abu Dhabi's Technology Innovation Institute (TII) took first place in MITs RF Grand Challenge at ICASSP 2024, the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing. The team presented innovative deep neural network architecture improvements to Wavenet, a deep generative model of raw audio. (RF Challenge)

AI Policy

UAE AI minister promotes globally inclusive policymaking

#UAE #USA #policy - UAE AI Minister H.E. Omar Sultan AlOlama appeared in a live interview by American global policy think tank Atlantic Council last Friday. He talked about Microsoft's investment in G42, geopolitics in AI, globally inclusive AI governance, and the UAE's strengths as a hub for AI. (LinkedIn)

GCC lawyers agree ethical AI framework

#Bahrain #GCC #AIethics - Gulf Cooperation Council states (GCC) prosecutors have endorsed an ethical framework for AI, enabled by the public prosecution of Bahrain, which will be integrated into the operations of public prosecutions across the GCC. (News of Bahrain)

QCB announces new cloud computing regs

#UAE #banking - Qatar Central Bank has issued regulations on ‘Cloud Computing’ in line with its Financial Sector Strategy and Fintech Strategy. The new regulations will enforce compliance with information security and data protection requirements through a secure and risk-based approach. See new regs. (Gulf Times)

Smart Cities

Cisco and ROSHN to develop IoT for smart cities

#Saudi #IoT - ROSHN Group, a Public Investment Fund (PIF) company, has signed a collaboration agreement with Cisco to use IoT technology to build future-proof, sustainable, and smart buildings. The initiative will use Cisco's state-of-the-art technologies to help empower ROSHN's upcoming Innovation Hub. (SPA)

Education

Qatar students rank top in AI olympiad

#Qatar #education - Students from Qatar took advanced places in the 3rd edition of the Arab Artificial Intelligence Olympiad, held in Jordan with the participation of 350 Arab school and college students. Qatar's Omar Bin Khattab Secondary School ranked first in the competition for computer vision. (Qatar Tribune)

Marketing

Saudia launches AI app

#Saudi #aviation - Saudia, the national carrier of Saudi Arabia, has launched an AI-powered Travel Companion which offers a personalised and tailored. one-stop solution to travelers. The app is part of a two-year digital innovation plan, developed in collaboration with Accenture. (Emirates News Agency)

Webidoo opens MEA headquarters in DIFC

#UAE #Italy #startups - Italian AI marketing platform Webidoo has established its Middle East and Africa (MEA) headquarters at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Innovation Hub. (Emirates News Agency)

AI Centres

Erbil university opens AI centre

#Iraq #education - Erbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdistan Region, officially opened its Artificial Intelligence Center at the University of Kurdistan. One of the first in the country, the opening of the center was attended by the region's Governor Omed Khoshnaw. (LinkedIn)

Egypt and Italy to create AI centre in Cairo

#Egypt #Italy #datacentres - Egypt and Italy will establish an AI centre in Cairo, to help propel AI development and use across Africa. The agreement was made this week between Egypt’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology and the Italian Minister of Enterprises and Made in Italy. (Daily News Egypt)

Sentiment

71% of the retail investors in the UAE invest in AI

#UAE #investing - A new survey of UAE retail investors by trading and investing platform eToro, finds that 71% hold stocks in companies engaged in artificial intelligence development, according to a survey from trading and investing platform eToro. (Emirates News Agency)

Racing

Autonomous racing championship debuts Saturday

#UAE #racing - The inaugural ASPIRE Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL) event, is set to take place this Saturday 27th at the the iconic Yas Marina Circuit, in Abu Dhabi. Eight teams will compete for a total purse of $2.25 million, with autonomous cars reaching speeds of 300 kilometres per hour. (TII)

Feature

InstaDeep CEO takes AI from Tunis to London

#Tunisia #AI - Karim Beguir, the founder and CEO of InstaDeep, says artificial intelligence presents an opportunity for African economies to go beyond simply exporting raw materials. (AFP)