This week's top stories —25-31 May
HUMAIN $1 billion VC fund, WeRide opens in KSA, Saudi quantum breakthrough
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
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🔥 New US-UAE agreement sure to accelerate G42's US plans
US-UAE AI Acceleration Partnership solves issues, adds opportunities
Tuesday, May 27th
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🔥 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
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🔥 Saudi HUMAIN to create $10 billion venture fund
Saudi AI giant plans massive venture investment, tech partnerships
Thursday, May 29th
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🔥 HUMAIN developing game-changing AI OS platform
HUMAIN developing intelligent natural language enterprise platform
Friday, May 30th
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🔥 MBZUAI graduates record AI cohort
Abu Dhabi AI university graduation ceremony marks milestones