G42 leads Astra Tech's $500m funding round; New Dubai robot cafe

Middle East AI News weekly news digest...

Good morning!

Here’s your weekly roundup of Middle East AI News!

As 2022 draws to a close, the news cycle is winding down, so this is a short one!

This is also the last newsletter that I will send to you via the Revue platform. From next week you will receive Middle East AI News via Substack. No action required, however, you can add middleeastainews@substack.com to your email address book to ensure that future emails avoid spam filters.

I am planning to write a 2022 roundup or two before the end of the year and this will be posted on both Linkined and Substack.

Wishing you a great Christmas weekend!

/Carrington

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Startups

G42 leads Astra Tech's $500m funding round

#UAE #funding - Abu Dhabi’s AI and cloud computing company G42 will be the lead investor in the latest funding round of $500 million for Dubai-based consumer technology development and investment company Astra Tech. (The National)

NLP

UAE could develop Arabic language applications for AI with Israel: Israeli official

#Israel #UAE #development - A potential Israel-UAE cooperation in developing an advanced AI application understand Arabic language and its dialects will benefit the entire Middle East region, according to CEO of the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA), Dror Bin. (Zawya)

Retail

Dubai to open first supermodel robot café in 2023

#UAE #F&B - Dubai’s first ‘supermodel robot café’ will open next year, according to media reports. Donna Cyber Café will open in Dubai and has a lifelike robot modelled on Eastern European model Diana Gabdullina as its cashier. (Arabian Business)

AI Diplomacy

Egypt briefs OECD on AI progress

#Egypt #OECD - Egypt’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat reviewed the country’s progress in AI, in a speech delivered at the the Digital Economy Ministerial Meeting of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). (MCIT)

Defence

Navy's progress towards unmanned operations: 5 Stories from 2022

#Bahrain #USA #unmanned - The US Navy has concentrated its efforts on pushing the use of unmanned and autonomous systems forward into operations. Despite the rockiness of its initial pitches to lawmakers back in 2020, this year the service made strides in explaining its strategy and executing it in real time. (Breaking Defense)

First published via Revue.