The United Arab Emirates (UAE) placed artificial intelligence at the core of its economic and development agenda in 2025, combining record government adoption with large-scale infrastructure projects, international partnerships and rising investment.
Official figures show that 97 per cent of UAE government entities now use AI tools, the highest utilisation rate globally. The country’s pool of digital talent also expanded rapidly, with the number of programmers exceeding 450,000 during the year.
A defining milestone was the launch of a 5-gigawatt UAE–US AI Campus in Abu Dhabi. Designed to serve billions of users, the site is set to become the largest supercomputing cluster outside the United States and will be powered by a mix of nuclear, solar and gas energy sources.
UAE strengthens global AI partnerships
This was followed by the announcement of the Stargate UAE project, a 1-gigawatt initiative involving G42, OpenAI, Oracle, Cisco, SoftBank and Nvidia. The project will deploy advanced NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GB300 systems, with its first phase scheduled to go live in 2026.
The UAE also expanded its international cooperation on artificial intelligence through a new framework with France. The agreement includes plans for a dedicated 1-gigawatt data centre, alongside joint initiatives in renewable energy, advanced semiconductors and shared research platforms.
On the investment side, UAE-based MGX joined BlackRock, Global Infrastructure Partners, Microsoft, Nvidia and xAI in an AI Infrastructure Partnership targeting next-generation data centres and energy solutions. The partnership could mobilise investments of up to $100 billion.
AI was also positioned as a tool for international development. At the G20 summit, the UAE committed $1 billion to an “AI for Development” initiative supporting projects across Africa, alongside a $200 million partnership with the Gates Foundation focused on building AI ecosystems for global agricultural development.
Domestically, total AI-related investments during 2024 and 2025 exceeded AED543 billion, with major global firms including Microsoft and KKR announcing significant commitments in the country, WAM reported.
Technological advances included the launch of Jais 2, a 70-billion-parameter language model trained on 600 billion Arabic tokens, the largest Arabic-first dataset of its kind. The UAE also introduced K2 Think, an open-source system designed for advanced AI reasoning.
AI powers UAE public services
In the public sector, the government rolled out the world’s first AI-driven legislative system to analyse laws and policy impacts, as well as an AI-powered human resources assistant serving more than 50,000 employees and automating 108 services. A national study found that 44 per cent of entities now use high-performance computing across 91 specialised applications in areas including healthcare, finance and security.
The year concluded with the launch of a Cybersecurity Excellence Centre in partnership with Google Cloud, expected to create more than 20,000 jobs and strengthen the national cybersecurity ecosystem.
Together, these developments underline how artificial intelligence has become a central pillar of the UAE’s growth strategy, shaping infrastructure investment, public services and global partnerships in 2025.
