UAE AI Minister Al Olama Sees Industry Consolidating Into A Few Major Players

(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) In the medium-term, the UAE's AI minister said he believes companies will“consolidate into a few larger players” with each company leading in their respective domain of artificial intelligence.

“We're going to see a multi-billion-dollar company that's just focused on AI and life sciences," Omar Al Olama, Minister of State for AI, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications, said.

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"In finance, for example, we're going to see certain players that are just going to focus on certain echelons of finance, whether it's insurance or whether it's investment or other things.”

AI will disrupt the social and economic fabrics in the short-term, but will be a great enabler for a country like the UAE in the long-term, he added, explaining that due to the size of the UAE economy and the demographic mix that the country has, AI will act as an“enabler.”

“The long-term trajectory looks like it's only going to be upwards from here, and that this technology is going to become the internet of the coming age, or even something beyond that that's going to completely revolutionize our lives,” he said, adding that he is not worried about the long-term affect.

Fitch, the credit ratings agency, said recently that rapid growth in AI-related investment will continue to pose risks to central credit.

AI volatility will continue as it's a new technology, the minister said, likening it to past technologies which saw“booms” and“busts.” In the late 90s and early 2000s, the internet saw a bubble bust in what is infamously known as the dot-com bubble burst, which saw 77 per cent of the Nasdaq index fall from its peak.

'Critical infrastructure'

Once the UAE and the region emerges from the conflict, which still looms amid renewed military action, Al Olama said the UAE will put up standards to ensure that data centres are classified as 'critical infrastructure' which cannot be targeted during military conflict.

“The conflict is definitely something that has affected certain plans, not in a negative way, but just made us plan differently,” he told the audience at the summit.

“No short-term turbulences are going to affect our long-term thinking,” he added.“Every time there's a problem, we don't let that affect our thinking about the future. We actually double down on the direction that we're going in. And that allows us to leapfrog.

The minister said that most countries around the world get scrutinised for their decision in investing in data centres, costing some politicians their elections.“It's a taboo subject,” Al Olama said of other countries.“Here, we're doubling down on building infrastructure.”

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