Another incredibly busy week for AI in the Middle East! Saudi Arabia’s new national AI company HUMAIN revealed that it is setting up HUMAIN Ventures, with a $10 billion venture capital fund to invest in Asia, Europe and the US. The company is also hiring to expand the development team working on one of HUMAIN’s new key products: HUMAIN OS.
We also saw significant movement in the autonomous mobility space this week, with news WeRide opening in Saudi Arabia, running robotaxi tests on Saudi roads, Uber signing a deal with ALJ, and Pony.ai signing agreement with Dubai’s RTA.
Here are this weeks biggest AI news stories!
Monday, May 26th
🔊 Listen to Monday’s Daily News Minute
🔥 New US-UAE agreement sure to accelerate G42's US plans
US-UAE AI Acceleration Partnership solves issues, adds opportunities
Tuesday, May 27th
🔊 Listen to Tuesday’s Daily News Minute
🔥 Abu Dhabi to create AI-powered energy command centre
Abu Dhabi Department of Energy partners with Presight and AIQ
🔥 Saudi scientists break Quantum security speed records
Saudi generator achieves thousand-fold performance improvement
🔥 WeRide announces robotaxi service in Saudi Arabia
WeRide expects to launch commercial services in Riyadh by late 2025
🔥 IBM to train 100,000 Egyptians in AI skills over 5 years
Five-year MCIT deal targets national strategy implementation
◼ Report explores role of Sovereign Cloud in the UAE
UAE’s Core42 and Microsoft eye global $259 billion Sovereign Cloud opportunity
◼ Majid Al Futtaim introduces mall-bots
Dubai Future Foundation, Majid Al Futtaim launch retail robotics pilot
◼ New ALJ-Uber deal could advance Saudi robotaxi plans
New Uber partnership could create new Saudi 30,000 jobs
◼ Pony.ai to start robotaxi trials with Dubai RTA this year
Chinese robotaxi pioneer to enters Dubai market following RTA MoU
◼ Middle East workers embrace AI revolution
Trust levels double those in UK; cultural divide emerges
Wednesday, May 28th
🔊 Listen to Wednesday’s Daily News Minute
🔥 Saudi HUMAIN to create $10 billion venture fund
Saudi AI giant plans massive venture investment, tech partnerships
Thursday, May 29th
🔊 Listen to Thursday’s Daily News Minute
🔥 HUMAIN developing game-changing AI OS platform
HUMAIN developing intelligent natural language enterprise platform
Friday, May 30th
🔊 Listen to Friday’s Daily News Minute
🔥 MBZUAI graduates record AI cohort
Abu Dhabi AI university graduation ceremony marks milestones