AI As The Foundation For Dubai’s Future, Says H.H. Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed At Dubai AI Week

H.H. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, emphasised that AI will be the cornerstone of Dubai's future. He highlighted that the city is not only ready to embrace changes across sectors but is also actively shaping them. AI is being used to improve life quality and create new opportunities. This was stated ahead of the first Dubai AI Week, starting tomorrow.

The event, organised by the Dubai Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DCAI) and overseen by the Dubai Future Foundation (DFF), aims to position Dubai at the forefront of global AI development. H.H. Sheikh Hamdan remarked that Dubai possesses the vision, infrastructure, and capabilities necessary for this leadership role. The focus will be on integrating AI into government services, education, and economic strategies.

Dubai AI Week will feature numerous activities over five days, starting with the AI Retreat on 21 April at the Museum of the Future. This retreat will gather 150 government officials and global AI experts for discussions on data governance, infrastructure, economy, investment, and talent development. His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama will deliver a welcome address.

Keynote speeches will follow from Michael Spranger of Sony AI Inc., and Yossi Matias from Google Research. Running alongside this event is the Dubai Assembly for AI at AREA 2071 in Emirates Towers from 21–25 April. Delegations from 15 countries and representatives from 25 global tech companies will participate in over 50 sessions.

The assembly will host delegations from countries like South Korea, Canada, India, Australia, Germany, Italy, and the UK. Participants include 18 government entities, 20 universities and research centres, and 60 AI startups showcasing innovations. Topics covered include trends shaping AI by Gartner and agentic AI by Microsoft.

Other sessions include 'AI Wearables' by Meta and 'Generative AI Nexus' by Yango. The event expects over 10,000 participants from more than 100 nationalities including experts, entrepreneurs, policymakers, regulators, investors, and tech innovators aiming to boost economic growth through AI adoption.

Additional Events

Standout events during the week include the Global Prompt Engineering Championship on 22-23 April at AREA 2071; the Dubai AI Festival organised by DIFC on 23–24 April at Madinat Jumeirah; and Machines Can See Summit running concurrently at AREA 2071 Emirates Towers and Museum of the Future.

Community-driven programmes such as AI Week in Schools from 21-25 April; Dubai AI Week Hackathon on 25 April at AREA 2071; sector-specific engagements like HIMSS Executive Summit on 23 April at Emirates Towers; International Conference on AI Innovations from 22-24 April at Grand Hyatt Dubai are also planned.

Strategic Partnerships

The week underscores Dubai’s commitment to shaping global AI agendas by bringing together world-class expertise across government, enterprise, education and emerging technology sectors. Strategic partners include Digital Dubai, DEWA, UAE AI Office along with tech firms like Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft among others.

H.H. Sheikh Hamdan stressed that governments must integrate AI into their core strategies or risk falling behind. "This is Dubai’s new standard – those who do not embrace AI today will fall behind," he said. The event aims to accelerate sector-wide adoption while enhancing life quality.

With inputs from WAM