In recent years, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has signaled its intention to become a major player in Artificial Intelligence (AI), but now other Gulf countries are also getting serious about the technology.
Al could contribute $320 billion to the Middle East by 2030, about 2% of total global benefits, according to a report by consultancy PwC.
"There is huge investment in Al in the Middle East," said Stephen Anderson, Middle East strategy and markets leader at PwC, speaking at the Global AI Summit (GAIN) last week in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
"Here in the region, people are much more prepared to experiment and engage with AI than perhaps some other parts of the world," he added.
One issue about the rapid growth of AI is that it can be extremely intensive and is increasingly becoming a major source of greenhouse gas emissions.
Google reported that its emissions in 2023 were nearly 50% higher than in 2019, which it attributed in part to the energy demands of AI, CNN writes, according to the Telegraph.
Energy demand from AI, data centers and cryptocurrencies could double by 2026, according to the International Energy Agency.
But Anderson believes the Gulf countries, whose economies are heavily dependent on fossil fuels, are well-positioned to become "big players" in the technology and have the potential to make it "greener". .
"We're at the center of the world when it comes to energy — not just old energy, but especially new energy," he said.
“This is the lowest cost country anywhere in the world to produce solar energy. So the ability to combine durability and energy with the computing power required from an AI perspective is really important."
Anderson pointed to the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia as the region's top investors in AI.
As Saudi Arabia seeks to cut its economy's dependence on oil and gas, it has invested heavily in AI, which it says will help achieve the goals outlined in its "Vision 2030" strategy, a government program to diversify the economy.
According to a recent projection by the Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA), which hosted the GAIN summit, AI will contribute 12% of the by 2030, with the sector growing at an annual rate of 29 %.
Otherwise, there has been considerable effort across the region to develop Arabic language models trained on datasets that capture the nuances of the language in a way that has been lacking in platforms like ChatGPT.
Last year, the United Arab Emirates unveiled a tool called Jais, and Saudi Arabia has developed the Arabic chatbot ALLaM.
Last week, it was announced that ALLaM will be hosted on Azure, Microsoft's cloud computing platform.
Nick Studer, CEO at management consulting firm Oliver Wyman Group, who attended the GAIN summit, said a focus on Arabic language models could help Saudi Arabia compete with English-speaking markets.
According to Studer, there are over half a dozen large Arabic-based language models in development in the country, focusing on a variety of use cases, from conversation to government and corporate applications.
"This combination of government and private sector enterprise could lead to the development of an AI hub, particularly as the kingdom and the wider region seek to diversify their economies," said Studer.
However, one of the main obstacles to the development of AI is public perception and governance: how should data be regulated in a safe, secure, ethical and fair way?
During the summit, various policies were announced, including the launch of guidelines by SDAIA that address the responsible use of deep forgeries, the unveiling of the Riyadh Charter for AI in the Islamic World, which establishes a framework for the development of AI technologies in compliance with Islam. values and principles, and a global framework for AI readiness, led by the International Telecommunication Union.
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