08-18-2025 
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A new report has highlighted the growth of Abu Dhabi’s artificial intelligence (AI) sector, a rise driven by several key factors, including government and private sector initiatives.
The report, published by the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, pegs the industry’s growth rate at 61% between June 2023 and June 2024. According to the document, the growth spurt pegs Abu Dhabi as the regional leader for artificial intelligence, outperforming its peers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
While a number of AI companies have set up shop in Abu Dhabi, 58% of firms in the emirate are focused on innovation and research. Meanwhile, the city has added over 150 new AI companies to its growing ecosystem in the first six months of 2025.
“This surge is not only about numbers,” said Shamis Ali Khalfan Al Dhaheri, Managing Director of the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “It reflects a vibrant, diverse community of entrepreneurs, scientists, and global leaders who recognise Abu Dhabi as a magnet for groundbreaking technology ventures.”
Beneath the glowing numbers for Abu Dhabi’s AI ecosystem is a three-year strategic roadmap to become a global leader for emerging technologies. Scheduled for 2025-2028, the AI roadmap places policy advocacy and ease of doing business at the core for international and local firms keen on establishing operations in the emirate.
Furthermore, Abu Dhabi has launched an Advocacy Working Group on Artificial Intelligence and Technology to spearhead the emirate’s push toward AI dominance. Last year, it established MGX, which leads the emirate’s investments in AI and other emerging technologies.
In May, a bilateral deal between the UAE and the U.S. will see Abu Dhabi host the largest AI campus outside America. The deal has since triggered a flurry of new AI companies to set up shop in Abu Dhabi, lured by access to high-end chips from Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA).
UAE’s stance powers AI growth
At the core of Abu Dhabi’s growing AI ecosystem is the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) broad approach toward artificial intelligence. While UAE authorities have declared their AI ambitions, launching the Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technology Council (AIATC) signals the country’s clear intention for dominance.
Heavy government spending has begun yielding early results with several UAE-made AI models already drawing comparisons with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Gemini. Meanwhile, authorities are monitoring safe AI usage with the rollout of a national charter for guiding principles and ethics.
New study bars AI models from learning via online content
Australian researchers have reached a breakthrough in developing a technique to bar unauthorized AI models from learning from visual data uploaded online.
The technique limits AI from accessing photos and artworks and using them as training data. Developed by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, the research leaned on support from the University of Chicago and the Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre (CSCRC).A close look reveals that the system renders images and artworks unreadable to AI models. Despite the alterations for AI systems, the report noted that the image remains unchanged to the human eye.
CSIRO scientist Derui Wang disclosed that the new technique has shown early flashes of brilliance during controlled lab studies. The system has proven formidable against adaptive attacks and retraining attempts by the most advanced AI models in the market.
“We can mathematically guarantee that unauthorised machine learning models can’t learn from the content beyond a certain threshold,” said Wang. “That’s a powerful safeguard for social media users, content creators, and organisations.”
Per the report, there are a plethora of use cases stemming from the CSIRO technique. For starters, social media users can lean on the solution as a protective layer for their photos before uploading them, restricting AI models from learning facial features.
Wang noted that the capability is key in stifling the ability of AI models to create deepfakes without the consent of the user. Furthermore, the technique will find utility in state defense, with countries using it to shield sensitive satellite pictures and cyber threat data from AI models.
For now, it is only applicable to images, but there are plans to extend the capabilities to music, text, and videos. While a mainstream rollout is still in the distance, CSIRO has its sights set on new research partners from AI safety and ethics, academia, cybersecurity, and defence.
Tightening the noose for AI
Amid the rapid adoption of AI models, researchers are making different attempts to curtail the excesses of the emerging technology. In the early days, AI companies rolled out detectors to identify AI-generated text, racking up 100% accuracy levels, while Big Tech firms have found varying degrees of success with watermarking tools.
Furthermore, experts are mulling blockchain to limit AI’s access to copyrighted materials for training. On the policy side, regulators are creating guidelines and guiding principles for AI companies.
In order for artificial intelligence (AI) to work right within the law and thrive in the face of growing challenges, it needs to integrate an enterprise blockchain system that ensures data input quality and ownership—allowing it to keep data safe while also guaranteeing the immutability of data. Check out CoinGeek’s coverage on this emerging tech to learn more why Enterprise blockchain will be the backbone of AI.
Watch: Demonstrating the potential of blockchain’s fusion with AI
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