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Omar Sultan AlOlama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications, affirmed that the United Arab Emirates, under the leadership of President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and the proactive thinking of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, has considered technology and digitisation as the foundation for governmental development and growth, transforming it into a highly significant factor for the journey of progress, which embraces utilizing technology to create unprecedented opportunities and build the future.
This came during AlOlama’s participation in a keynote titled "Pioneering the Future of Artificial Intelligence and Empowering Society through its Applications", as part of the Digital Readiness Retreat conducted by the Higher Committee for Government Digital Transformation for UAE government leaders and officials from ministries and federal entities, aiming to promote digital integration and collaboration as well as showcasing exemplary digital government models and prominent digital projects.
During his session, AlOlama discussed the journey of the UAE towards development and prosperity, emphasizing its focus on keeping pace with global changes and technological advancements. He pointed out that artificial intelligence solutions have witnessed the fastest adoption in human history, necessitating governments to rapidly adapt to ensure leadership in this field, and benefit from this technology in various sectors including healthcare, education, media, and others.
He stated that the expectations for the economic returns of artificial intelligence reaching 320 billion dollars in the Middle East, and the expectations for the contribution percentage of the artificial intelligence sector to the UAE’s GDP by 14% by the year 2030, and the ability of this field to increase productivity by 50%, underscore the immense potential and opportunities of this sector in changing the landscape of sectors and economies around the world and redefining jobs, skills, and qualifications.
He highlighted the extensive array of opportunities and challenges within the artificial intelligence sector. On one hand, deepfakes were employed to steal $25 million from a global company, and artificial intelligence facilitated the rapid production of thousands of toxic compounds in less than 6 hours. On the other hand, global factories annually save millions of dollars by significantly reducing costs through artificial intelligence, and companies achieve a commercial value of 1.84 billion dirhams by leveraging artificial intelligence techniques. Furthermore, the Environment Agency in Abu Dhabi utilizes artificial intelligence techniques to monitor soil and verify the quality of 250 sites covering an area of 3.8 million square meters in just 50 days. This underscores the importance of the optimal use of artificial intelligence, emphasizing its potential to benefit communities and enhance human safety.
He pointed out that the government’s role today lies in keeping pace with global changes to lead the future. The UAE realized this early on by developing data centres and focusing on skills development, ranking third globally in attracting artificial intelligence talent relative to its population size, according to a LinkedIn report. Additionally, the UAE focuses on developing educational institutions that keep pace with future changes, which is the first step in major projects such as the development of AI language models.
He stated that the UAE, with its flexible legislative environment and its efforts to collaborate with institutions and the private sector aims to provide an environment conducive to prosperity and development, embodying forward-thinking leadership and a future-oriented vision to integrate artificial intelligence across all fields.
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