Include AI activities in budgets — UAE minister

Nations have been urged to dedicate budgets to artificial intelligence (AI) just as they do for defence and other sectors of development.

The Minister of  Economy and Tourism of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Abdulla Bin Touq Al Marri, who said this, explained that AI provided sovereignty for nations, adding that it was not a race on the streets or across countries, but a race of how a nation's infrastructure was ready, how talents were groomed, how thinking and strategies were being aligned, and how small-scale enterprises were being groomed to accept AI.

Mr Al Marri was speaking at GITEX Global 2025, currently ongoing in Dubai in the UAE. It was anchored by CNBC Amanda Drury on the topic: "The race beyond innovation: AI, geopolitics and the global economic reset."

Described as the world's largest technology and AI show, GITEX Global 2025 features over 6800 tech enterprises - exhibitors, including 2000 startups from 180 countries, and 1200 investors.

The show  also has participants from companies leading the world's most ambitious AI infrastructure.

They include the automobile industry.

Grooming talents

Mr Al Marri said grooming talents was very important when it came to AI, and cited his country where he said they started with the Mohammed bin Zayed University for AI and today, they were seeing the needed results.

"Now, when we look at AI, we are second behind the US in talents, and with other countries as well when it comes to technology.

“The UAE graduates a lot of people in AI.

We have a lot of resources invested in it.

We are looking at huge advancement when it comes to AI to put UAE in a great position ahead," he added.

Change of laws, regulations

Mr Al Marri further said that in order to embrace AI, his country had changed 40 laws and regulations and incorporated AI in them.

He said their economy, which five years ago was 69 per cent non-oil, was currently about 77.3 per cent non-oil with their overall digital economy contributing 21 per cent to GDP, with an agenda to achieve 80 per cent non-oil in the next five years.

Answering a question on job losses associated with AI, the minister said the technology had rather come to make humans much better and more efficient.

Making reference to what happened in the past during the industrial revolution when machinery was introduced to farming, leading to production efficiency but loss of jobs, he said AI was in that aspect of industrial revolution that was making humans much better and more efficient.

On cyber security, Mr Al Marri, advised individuals and institutions to protect themselves in the digital space.