5 days ago
UAE welcomes Trump's AI Action Plan, ambassador Al Otaiba says
The UAE's ambassador to the US commended the AI Action Plan unveiled by the Trump White House on Wednesday.
Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba applauded the much-anticipated artificial intelligence plan just hours after several executive orders related to the three-pillared AI strategy were signed by President Donald Trump.
'The UAE welcomes President Trump's AI Action Plan and is ready to fast track our strategic AI partnership with the US, first announced during [President Trump's] May visit to Abu Dhabi,' Mr Al Otaiba posted on social media.
'As a trusted partner, we are working closely with leading US companies to adopt and scale American technology in the UAE and beyond,' he added, referring to the 5GW UAE-US AI Campus announced in May.
The UAE ambassador also reflected on the country's commitment to a $1.4 trillion investment framework in the US related to artificial intelligence infrastructure, semiconductors, energy and manufacturing.
'We are collaboratively setting a new 'Gold Standard' for securing AI models, chips, data and access – delivering lasting benefits for both our nations and the world,' he wrote.
A week ago in Pennsylvania at an energy conference, White House cryptocurrency and AI adviser David Sacks also boasted about the UAE's commitment to work with the US.
'I know that our Gulf state partners will honour our security agreement,' Mr Sacks said, talking about US confidence that American-made technology would be protected in the UAE and wouldn't be diverted to potentially adversarial countries.
In recent years, the UAE − the Arab world's second-biggest economy − has pursued becoming an AI front-runner, as it seeks to diversify its economy from oil.
The country's efforts have resulted in the establishment of start-ups, partnerships and investments from industry leaders like Microsoft, Nvidia and OpenAI, to name a few.
Through the creation of language models such as Falcon Arabic, the UAE has also sought to ensure aspects of Arabic culture are not left behind in the AI surge, with many large language models based on English-language data.
In 2019, the UAE announced the establishment of a university dedicated to AI, Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence.
