Saudi to create $40b AI fund; Saudi Dahua plant to make IoT products
Saudi to create $40b AI fund; Saudi Dahua plant to make IoT products
Middle East AI News weekly digest...
Good morning!
Welcome to this week’s Middle East AI News!
The big news this week is the reported plan of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to create a $40 billion fund for global AI investments. According to NYT sources, the fund will be launched in the second half of the year, but no details are available. Also noteworthy British-Syrian AI pioneer Mustafa Suleyman has been named as CEO of Microsoft AI.
Meanwhile, I’ve two events to introduce this week!
First, I’m hosting this week’s Middle East AI News LIVE - THURSDAY DEEP DIVE on LinkedIn later today. Join me at 12 noon KSA | 1pm UAE time | 9am GMT!
I’ll be talking to Professor Timothy Baldwin, Provost of Mohammed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence and professor of natural language processing. I’ll be talking to him about the five new MBZUAI-built LLMs announced last week.
Click here to attend today’s THURSDAY DEEP DIVE!
Secondly, on Wednesday 27th at 12.45pm KSA | 1.45pm UAE, I’m hosting the first Middle East AI News LIVE - Policy Council. Abdullah AlGhamdi, Senior Governance Consultant and Board Member ACC MENA Chapter and Nick O'Connell, Partner, Head of Digital & Data - Saudi Arabia at Al Tamimi & Company will join me to talk about the new SDAIA draft Data Sovereignty Policy! Click here.
Thanks for reading!
/Carrington
Investment
PIF to create $40b AI investment fund
#Saudi #investment - Saudi Arabia plans to launch a 40 billion global fund for AI, according to a report by the New York Times late Tuesday. Citing anonymous sources, the news group said that the Kingdom's Public Investment Fund (PIF) was in discussions with US-based investment firms including Andreessen Horowitz and that a fund would be launched in the second half of 2024. (Reuters)
Funding
Tunisian AI-startup ClusterLab raises pre-seed funding
#UAE #Tunisia #funding - ClusterLab, the Tunisia-born and now UAE-based startup behind the Arabic audiobook summarisation app Reedz, has secured $600,000 in a pre-seed funding round supported by a number of regional investors, including InstaDeep co-founder Karim Beguir. (Entrepreneur)
Government
UAE launches government AI award
#UAE #awards - The UAE Council for Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain has launched a new AI award for the public sector to promote AI adoption. The UAE Artificial Intelligence Award is open to government and semi-government entities, with a deadline of May 30th. (Emirates News Agency)
IoT
Dahua Technology & Alat JV to manufacture by year-end
#Saudi #electronics - Chinese video surveillance company Dahua Technology, and Saudi Arabia's new electronics and semiconductor group Alat, could begin manufacturing products by the end of this year. The joint venture will produce Artificial Intelligence of Things products (or AIoT), tailored for smart cities and enterprises in the region. (Arab News)
R&D
KISR develops AI energy management system
#Kuwait #R&D - The Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research has developed an AI-powered home energy management system. The project focused on leveraging AI and machine learning algorithms to optimise residential energy usage. (Kuwait Times)
SQU students create data sorting system
#Oman #R&D - A group of students from the College of Engineering at Sultan Qaboos University have used computer vision and robotics to automatically identify the quality of dates, allowing producers to reduce the time required to inspect and sort dates. (Times of Oman)
CoEs
Rezolve AI to open Centre of Excellence in Saudi Arabia
#Saudi #UK #CoE - UK-based AI for commerce company Rezolve AI has signed a partnership agreement with Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Investment to establish an AI Centre of Excellence. The deal also includes plans to launch at least five AI ventures funded and headquartered in the Kingdom. (Yahoo!)
Education
Emirates Robotics Competition concludes
#UAE #robotics - The second edition of the Emirates Robotics Competition, organised by Dubai Future Labs, Khalifa University, and Rochester Institute of Technology, has emds with the participation of 53 teams from 14 universities. The competition focused on recycling and waste collection. (Dubai Media Office)
Smart Cities
Abu Dhabi Police introduces service robots
#UAE #robotics - Abu Dhabi Police has deployed four robots to boost traffic safety. The new service robots can answer questions about fines, play traffic safety videos and respond to other queries from the public. (Gulf News)
Sentiment
AI adoption accelerates in UAE - survey
#UAE #adoption - The IBM Global AI Adoption Index 2023 has identified that 65% of IT professionals in the UAE have accelerated AI rollout in the last 24 months. According to the report, the country has emerged as a frontrunner in the adoption of artificial intelligence. (Zawya)
31% of CEOs implement AI strategies
#GCC #sentiment - More than half of CEOs in the region are looking at company-wide AI deployments, according to a new survey by management consulting firm Arthur D. Little. 31% have confirmed they are implementing AI strategies across several departments. (Zawya)
Ecommerce
Saudi government to monitor ecommerce compliance with AI
#Saudi #ecommerce - Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Commerce has announced an initiative to use AI technologies to evaluate online stores. The system will monitor 11 standards alerting merchants to compliance issues. (Saudi Gazette)
Telecom
Umniah deploys Ericsson AI network diagnostics
#Jordan #telecom - Jordanian mobile network operator Umniah will deploy Ericsson's AI-driven performance diagnostics and virtual drive testing. The deployment aims to help Umniah boost network efficiency. (Telecom Review)
Corporate Moves
Microsoft hires DeepMind co-founder as CEO of Microsoft AI
#USA #Microsoft - Microsoft has named British-Syrian AI pioneer Mustafa Suleyman as the company’s CEO of its artificial intelligence business unit. Suleyman co-founded DeepMind, which Google purchased in 2014, before starting up Inflection.ai in 2022 with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. (The New Arab)
