Emir Yildirim
02 October 2026•Update: 02 October 2026
The Emirati capital is positioning itself as a global artificial intelligence (AI) hub as the city prepares to host the AI Everything Abu Dhabi expo on Oct. 6.
The sold-out two-day event will gather 400 AI infrastructure builders, model developers, startups and investors managing $91 billion in total assets, according to a press release on Friday.
The summit, organized by inD and hosted by the Abu Dhabi Department of Government Enablement (DGE), will be held as businesses and governments worldwide spend around $2.59 trillion on AI this year, marking a 47% surge from last year, the event organizers said, citing Gartner projections.
The event aims to showcase the tangible results that massive AI investments can translate into through business returns and economic value by demonstrating live industry use cases.
Over 180 speakers will attend the event, headlined by Mistral AI co-founder and CEO Arthur Mensch, as well as Boston Dynamics founder Marc Raibert, who is expected to appear in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the first time.
Global tech giants like Microsoft, Oracle, Dell and Intel are also participating in the event.
The DGE is planning to invest $3.54 billion to realize the goal of transforming Abu Dhabi into “a model of AI-native government,” marking a world first.
The department has already integrated over 40 government entities into an AI ecosystem, with 100 AI use cases currently employed across public services in the emirate.
The UAE’s Technology Innovation Institute (TII) will showcase some 23 demonstrations from its nine applied research centers, as well as sector-specific innovations in energy, marine infrastructure, aerospace and autonomous systems.
The Falcon family of AI large language models (LLMs), especially the Falcon-H1 Arabic model, will be one of the key highlights of the summit.
The event will also address topics like who will control AI amid a rise in autonomous agents and speculative AI policies.
