UAE Among Top Countries To Attract, Retain AI Talent: New Report

The UAE is one of the top countries in the world attracting artificial intelligence talent . This was revealed in a regional report about the AI power index, compiled by consulting group BCG. Released on Monday, the first day of the AI Week, the index found that UAE and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia led the region in capitalising on the new technology.

According to Dr. Akram Awad, Managing Director and Partner at BCG, UAE's early adoption of AI helped steer it into a powerful position.“If any country has a high potential to really make it to the global level, it has to be the UAE,” he said.“UAE was one of the very first to launch the national AI strategy. Today, the country is the number one with sovereign funds in the AI field.”

He added that both UAE and KSA have“excelled” when it came to investments.“Both have announced $100 billion investment funds focusing on AI,” he said.“There has been a big focus on attracting and retaining talent. We found in our research that both UAE and KSA are actually among the very top in the world when it comes to attracting and retaining AI talent by far. There is certainly a national focus on building the broader ecosystem in terms of companies and research and development. This qualifies both countries to stand out as emerging contenders to compete very visibly on the global AI scene.”

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Last year, BCG released the global AI maturity matrix that assessed 73 global economies, dividing them into AI pioneers, contenders, practitioners and emergents. This year, the company is launching the GCC AI Pulse, which builds on the previous report, that classified the UAE as a rising contender.

According to Dr. Akram, the UAE has the potential to be a pioneer and be among the top 10 per cent of AI adopters in the world over the next few years. “When you look at the global AI indices, so far the UAE has been somewhere between the top 5 and top 20, depending on what we're looking at,” he said.

“According to the global AI maturity metrics, the UAE really sits in that category of countries that are potentially making it through to the club of pioneers, which so far has been reserved to the likes of the US, China, UK, Singapore and Canada. The country is really building muscle and capabilities. It should only be a matter of time until they crack through into that league.”

Dr. Akram pointed out that the biggest challenge was to catch up with the leaders of the world .“When you look into AI specialists, UAE has about 7,000,” he said.“Germany, for example, has over 40,000 of those. So that's kind of magnitude that we are talking about.”

He added that although UAE had built on research and innovation but it was important to“continue that momentum” and scale it to become more visible and noticeable on the global scene.

Earlier in the day, Minister for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications Omar Sultan AlOlama had said that while other countries debated about innovation and regulation in the AI space, the UAE believed in accelaration .

“We believe we should not compromise regulation for the sake of innovation, but we should as well focus on accelerating the positive use of this technology in the best way possible,” he said, in his keynote speech during the opening of Dubai AI week.“We do not want to hinder the use of AI when it improves the lives of people.”

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