Arab Businesses Embrace Post-Pandemic AI Innovation

The dedication of the various Gulf states to technological innovation is renowned. The view of the region as a playground for oil-rich supercar owners – Dubai in particular – has been replaced with an acknowledgment from Silicon Valley to Brussels that, alongside China, this region is set to be the rising tech epicentre for the 21st century.

The rise of AI in the region

In December last year, Egypt and UNESCO organised a roundtable discussion to discuss the best path toward AI and automation, as well as digital innovation, in the region. Dr. Golestan Radwan, Advisor to the Minister for AI in Egypt, said that, “Eagerness and ambition to implement AI technology is a common theme in the Arab region.”

And nowhere is that ambition more obvious than in the UAE, whose own Omar Al Olama became the world’s first Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence in 2017. In an interview with Hub71 (the UAE’s start-up accelerator), Al Olama expressed the country’s dedication to AI and the next generation of tech, saying, “The leadership of the UAE really believes in artificial intelligence as a technology… we need to help deploy the technology in the private and public sector and we also need to ensure that our ecosystem is a complement to the private sector rather than a hindrance.”

In order to ensure that commitment, the country has drafted the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2031, which has the lofty aim of establishing the UAE as a global leader in AI by 2031. Even more impressively, the Gulf state has established the world’s first higher education body dedicated to AI. The Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence opened in 2019 and offers degrees from associate to PhD level in Machine Learning, Natural Language Progression, and Computer Vision. It has been described by its chairman as “an open invitation from Abu Dhabi to the world to unleash AI’s full potential,” and boasts academics and students from all over the globe.

UAE workers have better access to tech

Interestingly, a recent YouGov poll published in Arabian Business showed that 50 percent of Gulf-based employees are able to automate their work with the help of AI tech – compared with just 24 per cent of employees in Germany and 16 per cent in the UK.

The question of “Why AI?” has been answered thoroughly by the ease in which it’s integrated into our lives and enhanced them. AI, machine learning, big data, and particularly quantum computing, are all at the apex of the new technology hill – but it’s not just about processing data, it’s about processing it cleverly and well. After all, the point of technology is to improve the lives of humans, to make our work not just easier but more intuitive and worth our time, and to improve quality of life.

The UAE currently has dozens of companies using AI to drive tech in areas such as agriculture, health and pharmaceuticals, logistics and travel, and of course in software and cyber security.

Post-pandemic AI

With the Emirates’ swift and decisive response to the COVID-19 pandemic having been praised by health officials worldwide, it’s particularly well-placed to push technology forward while, being frank, but not indelicate, other countries will be busy rebuilding their basic infrastructure and recovering financially.

Looking at AI for what it can help achieve for businesses (and the humans who work in them), rather than a focus on the ‘hard tech’ is, experts agree, the best approach to discovering what AI can do for your business. But, simply put, AI can automate tasks and calculations, from the most simplistic to the most complex (usually in the latter case, using quantum computing), freeing up your people’s time to dedicate to bigger picture activities and strategy. The UAE has clearly seen that and embraced not just the pursuit of technology, but the better life waiting on the other side of it – whether that’s in smart cities, the Internet of Things or automation.

But do we want the rise of the machines?

As with any technology, AI, automation and algorithms (the three A’s!) can help us, but it also comes with potential downsides. There’s been an alarming rise in hacking, ransomware groups and cyber attacks recently, and with the advent of quantum computers, many of these thieves have already infiltrated government and business systems, harvested their data, and are just waiting for the right technology to decrypt it. That technology is only a few years away, so, while business leaders want to embrace the latest technology for the right reasons, you’ll also need to protect yourself.

Thankfully, there are a few companies already with a vested interest in the UAE, who provide protection against the rise of AI as well as against quantum computer attacks. One of these companies is Arqit, which specialises in quantum encryption. While the quantum computers we should be worried about – the ones capable of breaking virtually any kind of encryption and accessing all of your data – don’t technically exist yet, Arqit’s cutting edge technology aims to protect us from future technological breakthroughs. And they’ve already started collaborating with firms in the Gulf, including the Saudi Arabian smart city, Neom - you can read a bit more here about their work in the KSA.

In conclusion? The AIs have it! 202s is an incredibly exciting time to live, work or invest in the UAE, and it looks like the Next Big Thing in tech is set to come out of the Gulf.