This week’s top stories — 19–25 Jul
Ajman launches trade licence renewal agent; MGX consortium completes $40B buyout
This was the week that MGX-led consortium completed its $40 billion acquisition of Texas-based data centre operator Aligned.
In other news, e& UAE and Core42 launched a sovereign AI compute platform; the UAE Ministry of Finance reported a 97% call-resolution rate using generative AI; and new research found that Saudi AI-native startups are nearly five times more likely to reach $1 million than traditional startups.
Here are this week’s biggest AI news stories!
Sunday, July 19th
🔥 45% of Saudi Internet users now use AI
ChatGPT tops list of downloaded apps, women use AI tools more than men
🔥 UAE firms locked into AI vendors, IBM finds
88% of executives in the UAE say switching AI vendor is hard, versus 71% globally
🔥 AI now features in 1 in 30 new Gulf jobs
Gulf AI hiring triples in four years, with technology and banking sectors leading the surge
Monday, July 20th
🔊 Listen to Monday’s Daily News Minute
🔥 RAK-based Julphar taps IBM, SAP for major digital overhaul
IBM Consulting leads massive migration to SAP S/4HANA Cloud
🔥 DIFC gets first AI-native asset manager
Deep Finance Capital launches in Dubai, built around a proprietary AI framework
🔥 AI World Series reveals finalists
AI World Series names 26 finalists shortlisted from more than 60 awards entries
Tuesday, July 21st
🔊 Listen to Tuesday’s Daily News Minute
🔥 MGX-led consortium completes $40 billion Aligned buyout
AIP closes largest-ever data centre deal and adds $5 billion to fund US expansion
🔥 e& UAE, Core42 launch sovereign AI compute platform
Sovereign AI Compute platform is the first joint offering under the companies’ global partnership
Wednesday, July 22nd
🔊 Listen to Wednesday’s Daily News Minute
🔥 SDAIA guide catalogues 100+ types of AI bias
New reference supports the Kingdom’s AI ethics and risk-management frameworks
🔥 Saudi AI-native startups nearly 5X more likely to hit $1 million
Saudi AI-native companies outpace traditional startups, but remain only 15% of the total
Thursday, July 23rd
🔊 Listen to Thursday’s Daily News Minute
🔥 Abu Dhabi launches AI policy training for leaders
DGE partners with a Singapore school on AI policy training targeting government directors
🔥 GenAI pushes Ministry of Finance call resolution to 97%
UAE Ministry of Finance cuts call-centre answer time to eight seconds using AI
🔥 Jordan hits 85.5% government service digitisation
AI integration will be expanded as Jordan’s digitisation drive nears completion
Friday, July 24th
🔊 Listen to Friday’s Daily News Minute
🔥 Ajman launches trade licence renewal AI agent
Trade licences renewed automatically via an AI assistant
🔥 Ex-G42 CAIO joins B Capital
Andrew Jackson most recently led Stargate UAE governance at G42