Like a friend who shares the news over tea — no jargon, no fluff, just what matters across the Gulf.
ISSUE 03, 8 June 2026
Ai MAJLiS
- UAE
- SAUDI ARABIA
- QATAR
- KUWAIT
- BAHRAIN
- OMAN
Ahlan bik — welcome to Issue #003 of Ai MAJLiS. This week, we have a lot to talk about. The UAE has put AI to work screening every single work permit in the country — starting now. Saudi Arabia took its human-centered AI message to Geneva. Kuwait’s data center reality is starker than most people realise — the numbers tell a clear story. And GITEX is about to become the world’s largest AI event. Pour the karak — let’s get into it.
01
UAE - Agentic AI · Government
Every Work Permit in the UAE Is Now Screened by AI — Starting May 1
Here’s agentic AI in action — not as a concept, but as live government policy. From May 1, 2026, every new work permit application in the UAE is being evaluated by an AI and robotics platform jointly developed by the Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs and Port Security (ICP) and the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MoHRE).
The system analyses skills, education, and experience against live labour-market data, generating an eligibility score in seconds and automatically flagging cases that need human review. Officials described it as cutting processing times significantly, reducing documentation errors, and freeing immigration officers to focus on complex or high-risk cases.
This is the first major deliverable under the UAE’s Agentic AI Operations Framework — announced earlier this year by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum — which targets integrating agentic AI across 50% of government operations by 2028.
100%
Work permits now AI-screened from May 2026
50%
Govt operations targeted for agentic AI by 2028
340%
Growth in UAE AI job postings since 2022
Separately, Dubai’s ruler has directed that GITEX Tech-cation 2026 — scheduled for December 7–11 at Dubai Expo City — become the world’s largest event dedicated to technology and AI. The ambition: make Dubai a global convening hub for AI, robotics, advanced computing, and smart city innovation.
Why it matters: AI is no longer something the UAE is planning — it is something the UAE is running. Any business deploying AI in government-adjacent services needs to understand the UAE’s emerging compliance landscape, including DIFC Regulation 10 (in force since January 2026) and the upcoming PDPL deadline of January 2027.
02
SAUDI ARABIA - AI & Future of Work
Saudi Arabia Takes Its "Human-Centered AI" Case to Geneva — and the World Is Listening
At the 114th International Labour Conference in Geneva on June 4, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Human Resources Ahmed Al-Rajhi called on global labor leaders to harness AI responsibly — building a more inclusive, productive, and sustainable future of work.
Al-Rajhi highlighted the ILO Director-General’s report titled “A Moment of Choice: Harnessing Artificial Intelligence for Decent Work” — saying AI offers major opportunities to boost productivity and labor market efficiency while also presenting challenges that require balanced and responsible policies.
He pointed to Saudi Arabia’s designation of 2026 as the Year of Artificial Intelligence as evidence of the Kingdom’s commitment — framing it not just as a technology initiative but as a social and economic transformation agenda.
This comes as AI-led automation begins reshaping the GCC workforce in practice:
"As AI continues to advance, a growing share of white-collar and knowledge-based occupations faces potential automation. While culturally and practically resistant fields like healthcare and education may remain partially insulated, the trajectory is clear."
— Nature: Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, October 2025
Saudi Arabia is simultaneously moving AI agents into government work — the Kingdom is actively piloting AI agent deployments as partners in public administration, with SDAIA overseeing rollout across ministries.
03
KUWAIT - Infrastructure
Kuwait's Data Center Status — How the Numbers Stack Up
New data from the Data Center Map — a widely used industry database — has put Kuwait’s infrastructure challenge in sharp relief against its GCC neighbors:
57
UAE data centres
51
Saudi data centres
5
Kuwait data centres
Kuwait’s five data centers trail not just the UAE and Saudi Arabia — it also lags Qatar (11), Oman (15), and Bahrain (8). Two more facilities launched last year, but the gap remains enormous relative to Kuwait’s economic ambitions.
The consequences are practical: Kuwait’s regulations require sensitive national data to be stored locally. With only five data centers — many operating near capacity — there is a hard ceiling on how much AI workload can legally run inside the country. Google and Microsoft partnership announcements generate headlines, but without the physical infrastructure to match, large-scale AI deployments remain constrained.
One positive signal: Ooredoo Kuwait (a subsidiary of Qatar’s Ooredoo) announced in November it is enhancing an existing data centre with the latest NVIDIA GPUs — a small but meaningful step toward closing the compute gap.
04
BAHRAIN & OMAN - Semiconductor Strategy / Digital Economy
Oman Bets on Semiconductors, Not Data Centers — A Contrarian GCC Play
While every other GCC country is racing to build gigawatt-scale AI data centers, Oman is making a different bet. Rather than competing on compute capacity, Muscat is deliberately positioning itself as a specialized player in the semiconductor supply chain — focusing on the hardware foundations of the AI stack rather than the capital-intensive data center race.
The Middle East Institute describes it as a calculated wager: “Omani leadership is making a deliberate bet — focusing on the hardware foundations of the AI stack rather than the high-stakes, capital-intensive bet of gigawatt-scale data centers.” Whether the strategy proves prescient depends heavily on the commercial performance of Oman’s initial semiconductor investments — and on whether the OECD’s energy disruption scenarios ease.
Oman’s strengths in this play are real: its Gulf of Oman terminal infrastructure provides alternative trade route access outside the Strait of Hormuz, and its 15 data centers — modest by UAE or Saudi standards but significant relative to Kuwait and Bahrain — provide a foundation for specialized compute hosting.
- Opportunity Spotlight
Oman’s semiconductor focus is a rare differentiation play in a region where most countries are converging on the same data center model. For companies in chip manufacturing, materials supply, or specialized compute, Oman may offer first-mover advantage as the region’s hardware-layer partner.
Meanwhile, Bahrain continues to build its cloud and data center foundation steadily. AI-driven cloud infrastructure, smart manufacturing, and AI-enabled education are all set to expand — with the Fintech Revolution Summit 2026 in Manama reinforcing Bahrain’s positioning as the Gulf’s most innovation-friendly regulatory environment for financial AI.
05
QATAR - AI Ecosystem / White-Collar Automation
Qatar's AI Ecosystem Matures — While the Gulf Faces Its White-Collar Automation Moment
Qatar is emerging as a serious AI hub through a combination of events, partnerships, and public-sector digitization. In 2025, Qatar received three GCC Digital Government Awards, the Arab Digital Economy Award, and recognition for 15 technology leaders at the Qatar Digital Business Awards — all signals of an ecosystem maturing beyond aspirational policy.
Web Summit Qatar 2026 and the World Summit AI–Qatar 2025 have further demonstrated the country’s ability to attract global AI discourse, with public-private partnership now described by senior Qatari officials as “no longer optional — it has become essential.”
Qatar’s Qai — the QIA-backed sovereign AI entity — continues to expand its remit, engaging international firms across fintech, healthcare, and smart infrastructure with its governance-first mandate. The UK–GCC FTA is already accelerating AI investment flows into Doha specifically.
But across the wider GCC, a more uncomfortable conversation is beginning. Research published in Nature: Humanities and Social Sciences Communications warns that as AI advances across the Gulf, white-collar and knowledge-based occupations face growing automation risk — in finance, customer service, legal, and administrative roles. The GCC’s national AI strategies are heavy on infrastructure and light on transition planning for workers whose jobs AI is actively beginning to do.
"As AI continues to advance, a growing share of white-collar and knowledge-based occupations faces potential automation. While culturally and practically resistant fields like healthcare and education may remain partially insulated, the trajectory is clear."
— Nature: Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, October 2025
Why it matters: The GCC’s AI ambition is generating infrastructure and investment — but the human transition question is being under-addressed. Businesses in workforce development, reskilling platforms, and AI augmentation tools (rather than pure replacement) are entering a market where demand is about to accelerate significantly.
GCC AI SNAPSHOT
Where Each Country Stands This Week
Three things are true simultaneously this week, and they pull in different directions. The UAE is actually running agentic AI through its government — not planning it, running it. Saudi Arabia is championing responsible AI at the ILO while deploying agents inside its own ministries. And the OECD is warning that a prolonged conflict could slow the whole GCC AI story down significantly.
The region is not in denial about the risk. But it’s also not stopping. That is perhaps the most honest summary of where the GCC stands in its AI decade: eyes open, moving forward, aware of the headwinds — and betting that the infrastructure they are building today will outlast the disruptions of today.
That’s our majlis for this week. If something made you think, share it with a friend — the best conversations start when more people pull up a chair. Yallah, see you next Sunday.
