The United Arab Emirates has strengthened its position as a global artificial intelligence powerhouse through strategic partnerships with cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), according to Dr Chaouki Kasmi, Chief Innovation Officer at the Technology Innovation Institute (TII).
Speaking on the latest AB Majlis podcast, Dr Kasmi revealed how AWS played a crucial role in developing Falcon, the UAE’s first homegrown large language model (LLM), which now competes with offerings from tech giants like OpenAI and Google.
UAE’s strategic AI partnerships
“We made the strategic decision to establish our partnership with AWS at the very early days of the Falcon programme,” Dr Kasmi said.
“We also had a lot of interesting support from AWS experts to help us leverage the cloud infrastructure they have in place.”
The Falcon model is now available on AWS SageMaker, enabling developers to create applications, including chat services similar to ChatGPT.
Dr Kasmi also highlighted that the UAE’s AI ascendancy reflects the country’s early commitment to artificial intelligence, noting it appointed a minister for AI in 2017 and established the first university fully dedicated to the technology.
“The UAE is a very special case in the world,” he said. “It is a very early adopter and a very early believer that artificial intelligence will be transformational.”
The TII executive pointed to a recent report in The Economist that ranked the UAE in the top three countries globally for AI development, behind only the United States and China.
Dr Kasmi credited this progress to the country’s leadership, which has “set the innovation agenda” and aligned legal frameworks with infrastructure development and investment in innovation.
The collaboration with AWS represents part of a broader ecosystem approach that Dr Kasmi believes is essential for the UAE’s continued technological advancement.
“We can really see the benefits of having a strong ecosystem. We have been able to bring Falcon to life because we had strong support from our partners like AWS,” he said.
The TII is now focused on bringing Falcon to the application level through AI 71, a startup dedicated to integrating the models into practical products.
For businesses in the region, Dr Kasmi stressed that adopting AI-enabled resources is no longer optional but necessary to maintain competitiveness. Government services in the UAE, already heavily digitalised, are well-positioned to integrate AI solutions, with chief AI officers appointed across ministries and government entities.
Dr Kasmi also addressed quantum computing, another area where the UAE is investing, with TII developing both quantum sensors and “the brain of the quantum computer.” He suggested future systems would likely combine quantum and traditional computing infrastructure.
“If we really want to maintain our leadership in science and technology in the region, we have no choice when investing and supporting our quantum research laboratories,” he said.
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