Abu Dhabi-Developed Cryptographic AI Goes Global After US Acquisition

2026-05-16 04:16:19

(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) A technology developed in Abu Dhabi to help organisations use their most sensitive data in AI systems without exposing it is now being deployed globally through a San Francisco-based company.

There is a category of data that every major institution holds, and almost none can use for AI: patient records too sensitive to share, financial transactions too regulated to expose, classified intelligence too valuable to risk exposing. The problem is not the data. It is the absence of a technology that can run AI on it without compromising it.

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TII, the applied research pillar of Abu Dhabi's Advanced Technology Research Council, developed advanced cryptographic AI technologies that allow AI systems to train, fine-tune, and run inference on highly sensitive data without exposing it. The techniques were developed for real production environments, enabling organisations to use AI on sensitive data securely rather than limiting the work to laboratory testing.

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On May 4, OPAQUE, a San Francisco-based confidential AI company founded by researchers from UC Berkeley's RISELab and backed by a $24 million Series B at a $300 million valuation, acquired those technologies. It is the first time cryptographic AI developed in the UAE has been acquired and deployed at a global scale by a US-based technology company.

"We developed these cryptographic technologies to address a fundamental challenge in AI: how to enable powerful models to work with highly sensitive data without compromising confidentiality or trust," Dr Najwa Aaraj, CEO of TII, told Khaleej Times. "OPAQUE was the right partner to bring this to market because it has already built the enterprise platform and customer base to deploy it at scale. This is what applied research is for: foundational technology developed in Abu Dhabi, now moving from the lab into real-world global deployment."

The acquisition extends OPAQUE's platform across the full AI lifecycle, from training and fine-tuning to AI agent execution, with verifiable cryptographic guarantees at every stage. OPAQUE's existing customers include ServiceNow, Anthropic, and Accenture. The acquired technology means those organisations, and any that follow, can now run AI on data they previously could not touch without regulatory or security exposure.

For TII, the significance runs deeper than a single transaction.

"This collaboration reflects the UAE's growing role as a contributor to global AI infrastructure, Foundational AI and cryptographic technologies developed in Abu Dhabi can transition from applied research into deployment through international platforms at global scale. Trusted AI technologies developed in the UAE are now contributing to how secure AI systems are built and deployed internationally." She said

The post-quantum dimension adds urgency to the timing. Organisations holding sensitive data face what cryptographers call a“harvest now, decrypt later” risk, meaning information captured today could be exposed once quantum computing becomes sufficiently advanced. TII built post-quantum protections into the technology from the outset.

"The transition window is already open, particularly for organisations managing long-life sensitive data or critical infrastructure," Dr Aaraj said. "Sensitive data being generated today, whether healthcare records, financial information, sovereign data, or strategic intellectual property, may still need to remain secure for decades from now. That creates a very real risk. This is why TII incorporated post-quantum protections into these technologies early in their development."

The acquisition was overseen by Faisal Al Bannai, Adviser to UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Secretary General of ATRC.

Abu Dhabi-developed intellectual property is now running inside renowned American institutions. The direction of the technology transfer has concurrently reversed.