Top Middle East AI News stories in 2023

My top 10 Middle East AI News stories

The year 2023 was a massive year for technology in the Middle East. Not because of the rising spending on information technology and communications (Gartner estimates this year's Middle East and North Africa's IT spend at $176.8 billion), but because of the strategic investment in education, digital platforms, compute capacity and research and development. This investment paves the way for future innovation, R&D and STEM talent that will, in turn, create more intellectual property (IP) in the Middle East, boosting technology’s overall contribution to the region’s economy.

Here's my pick of the top 10 stories on Middle East AI News in 2023:

1. Abu Dhabi launches new global AI company 🎧

28-Nov-23 - Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC) launched a new artificial intelligence company called AI71, to commercialise the Falcon series of large language models developed by the Technology Innovation Institute and to leverage AI to solve the world's most meaningful problems.

2. Bayanat, Yahsat merger to create AI spacetech powerhouse 🎧

19-Dec-23 - G42 geospatial AI services company Bayanat and Mubadala satellite services subsidiary Yahsat will merge to create an AI-powered spacetech giant with global reach and implied market capitlisation of AED 15 billion ($4.08 billion). The new entity will be called ‘Space42’.

3. G42 merges Injazat with G42 Cloud and Inception

12-Oct-23 - G42, Abu Dhabi's AI-focused technology holding and investment company, merged its subsidiaries G42 Cloud, Inception and Injazat, to create Core42, an AI and data services powerhouse. Core42 now provides infrastructure, solutions, managed digital services and consulting services,

4. TII announces Falcon 180B LLM

6-Sep-23 - Technology Innovation Institute (TII), the R&D lab of Abu Dhabi's Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), released the world's most powerful open access large language model, Falcon 180B.

5. Cerebras & G42 build massive cloud supercomputer network

20-Jul-23 - AI chip maker Cerebras Systems announced a partnership with Abu Dhabi technology holding group G42 to create a massive supercomputer network offering cloud services for AI model training, together with a $100 million deal to supply ‘the world's largest AI supercomputer’ as the network’s first system.

6. The Middle East’s most powerful supercomputer 🎧

14-Nov-23 - King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) now operates the Middle East’s most powerful supercomputer, Shaheen III. First announced by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) last year, the supercomputer is now the 20th most powerful supercomputer in the world.

7. Open Innovation and WWT sign $100m partnership deal 🎧

21-Dec-23 - World Wide Technology (WWT), announced a $100 million partnership deal with Abu Dhabi-based artificial intelligence technology startup Open Innovation AI. WWT will adopt the AI startup's AI Operating System (AIOS) platform, which allows enterprises to transform their AI and machine learning operations.

8. Saudi to train 300,000 school students in AI 🎧

4-Oct-23 - The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) is providing digital training courses in AI and coding for 300,000 middle and high school students, selected from 3 million school children. The training initiative is part of the National Olympiad for Programming and Artificial Intelligence, which begins in January.

9. R&D moves up Abu Dhabi's agenda 🎧

18-Aug-23 - Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince issued a resolution to restructure the Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC) board of directors, bringing together some of the biggest stakeholders in Abu Dhabi's technology vision, and some of the emirate's foremost proponents of AI.

10. Will GenAI champion the Arabic language? 🎧

31-Aug-23 - G42’s applied research arm Inception (now part of Core42), Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, and AI chip maker Cerebras Systems announced Jais 13B, a new, powerful and high-quality Arabic large language model.

Note: I've been increasing the number of news stories and features on Middle East AI News over the past year, but this is an ongoing process that will continue into 2024.

Hat tip: Thanks to Wamda for the 2023 top stories idea!