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ISSUE 12, 10 August 2026
Ai MAJLiS
- UAE
- SAUDI ARABIA
- QATAR
- KUWAIT
- BAHRAIN
- OMAN
Ahlan wa sahlan — welcome to Issue #012 of Ai MAJLiS. This morning, more than a hundred UAE federal officials gathered to formally launch the strategic track of the country’s agentic AI project — moving the 50%-of-government-operations target from policy declaration to operational delivery. That story broke just hours ago. Saudi Arabia’s LEAP conference is three weeks away, bringing 200,000 attendees to Riyadh’s tech stage for the first time since the event was postponed — and HUMAIN is preparing a new wave of announcements. The Arab News published a landmark analysis this week of how the US-Gulf AI alliance is rewriting Washington’s global technology strategy. And across the four “AI Practitioner” states — Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and Kuwait — the gap between ambition and execution is closing faster than the headlines suggest. Pour the khawa — Issue #012 is here.
01
[UAE] - Agentic AI · Breaking Today
100+ UAE Federal Officials Launch the Strategic Track of the Agentic AI Project — This Morning
This one broke this morning — August 10, 2026. More than 100 federal officials attended a workshop today that formally launched the strategic track of the UAE’s national agentic AI project. This is not a planning meeting. It is the operational start of embedding agentic AI into the UAE’s federal government machinery.
Organised by the National Committee for the Agentic AI Project, the strategic government workstream focuses on embedding AI capabilities into federal operations to improve policy formulation, future foresight, and decision-making efficiency — under the UAE Government 4.0 framework.
Huda Al Hashimi, Deputy Minister of Cabinet Affairs for Strategic Affairs, set the tone at the opening: “This marks the operational start of deploying AI models to strengthen the UAE’s global leadership in future-ready governance.” The framing is deliberate — this is not experimentation. It is the beginning of a structured, government-wide deployment.
The initiative covers seven key pillars: strategy and projects, foresight and strategic intelligence, policies, structures and governance, government performance, global competitiveness, and innovation in government work. Every federal ministry and entity is in scope.
100+
Federal officials at today's strategic track launch
50%
Govt operations targeted for agentic AI within 2 years
7
Key pillars in the agentic AI strategic framework
The framing throughout the workshop was deliberately human-centred: “Human leads, AI enables” — positioning agentic AI not as a replacement for officials but as an infrastructure layer that frees them to focus on higher-order judgment, strategic thinking, and policy design. This is consistent with the UAE’s broader AI doctrine and with the NEP-AI leadership programme that is training 32 Emirati experts to lead exactly this kind of transformation from the inside.
The timing is significant. This is the same week that Arab News published its landmark analysis of the US-Gulf AI alliance — noting that “the Gulf’s transformation in artificial intelligence is not confined to the construction of data centres. It also reflects government preparedness and a clear political vision.” Today’s workshop is the evidence for that claim.
"This marks the operational start of deploying AI models to strengthen the UAE's global leadership in future-ready governance."
— Huda Al Hashimi, Deputy Minister of Cabinet Affairs for Strategic Affairs, UAE, August 10, 2026
Why it matters: For every technology company with UAE government clients or aspirations, today’s launch is a procurement signal. The agentic AI strategic track is the framework through which ministry-level AI deployments will now be evaluated, approved, and measured. Understanding which of the seven pillars aligns with your offering is the first step to participating in what will be a significant wave of government AI tenders over the next 24 months.
02
[SAUDI ARABIA] - LEAP · HUMAIN · Arabic AI
LEAP Is 21 Days Away — and Saudi Arabia's AI Story Is About to Hit Its Biggest Stage of the Year
Saudi Arabia’s flagship technology conference LEAP 2026 runs from August 31 to September 3 at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Centre in Malham — and the countdown is now in days, not weeks. With 200,000+ expected attendees and co-located with DeepFest (the region’s dedicated AI event), LEAP is where Saudi Arabia’s Year of AI makes its most visible commercial statement.
Originally scheduled for April, LEAP 2026 was rescheduled to late August following regional disruptions. That delay has had an unusual effect: it has compressed the announcement pipeline, meaning a significant number of AI deals, partnerships, and infrastructure commitments that would have been spread across the year will now land in a concentrated three-week window — LEAP (August 31 – September 3) followed immediately by GAIN (September 15–17). This is the Gulf’s most commercially dense AI fortnight in history.
HUMAIN — the $100 billion PIF-owned full-stack AI company that has been building through 2026 — is expected to use LEAP as its major 2026 announcement platform. The pipeline is formidable. HUMAIN has already executed deals with Nvidia, AMD, AWS (150,000 AI accelerators in the AI Zone in Riyadh), xAI, Adobe Firefly (Arabic generative AI), Qualcomm (200MW of AI inference), Accenture, and Cohere (50MW compute for Canadian AI startup’s first deployment outside North America). LEAP and GAIN are where the next chapter gets written.
Aug 31
LEAP 2026 opens — Riyadh, 200,000+ expected
Sep 15
GAIN 2026 opens — back-to-back with LEAP
150K
AI accelerators in HUMAIN-AWS AI Zone, Riyadh
Perhaps the most significant Saudi AI development of the month: ALLAM — Saudi Arabia’s sovereign Arabic-first large language model, built by 40 PhD researchers under Crown Prince MBS’s patronage — is in advanced stages of commercial deployment. ALLAM is not just a technical achievement; it is a statement that the Arab world’s most commercially important AI interactions — in Arabic, reflecting Arab culture, trained on authentic Arabic datasets — should be served by Arab-owned infrastructure. HUMAIN’s partnership with Adobe Firefly Foundry to create culturally relevant generative AI content using ALLAM as the foundation is the first major commercial application.
- The Gulf's Most Consequential AI Fortnight
Aug 31 – Sep 3: LEAP 2026 + DeepFest, Riyadh (200,000+ attendees)
Sep 15 – 17: GAIN 2026 Global AI Summit, Riyadh (70+ countries)
These two events, three weeks apart, will define the Gulf AI commercial agenda through year-end.
Why it matters: If you are an AI company, investor, or enterprise buyer planning your Gulf market engagement for H2 2026, the next six weeks are the critical window. LEAP and GAIN are not simply events — they are where the Gulf’s AI deals get announced, where partnerships get formalised, and where the next year’s procurement agenda gets shaped. Missing this fortnight means entering 2027 playing catch-up.
03
[GCC WIDE] - Geopolitics · AI Strategy
The AI Alliance Rewriting Washington's Gulf Strategy — How the GCC Became America's Most Consequential Technology Partner
Arab News published this week one of the most substantive analyses of the US-Gulf AI relationship yet written — and its argument is worth sitting with. The piece, titled “The AI Alliance Rewriting Washington’s Gulf Strategy,” makes a case that goes well beyond technology: the Gulf’s AI ambitions have become central to how Washington thinks about great-power competition, semiconductor supply chains, and the future of the global AI order.
The core argument: all six GCC states are moving to embed artificial intelligence in their economic plans, and Washington has recognised that the Gulf’s sovereign wealth, energy resources, and geographic position make it the most consequential partner in the global AI buildout outside the United States itself. This explains the A:5 reclassification of the UAE, the CHIPS Act investments in Mubadala’s GlobalFoundries, and the structured bilateral AI frameworks with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and other Gulf states.
The Arab News analysis draws on the Oxford Insights Government AI Readiness Index to quantify the gap that has opened: Saudi Arabia ranks 15th globally in AI readiness, the UAE ranks 19th, and both sit in the world’s top 20 — more advanced than most European economies and all but a handful of Asian ones.
15th
Saudi Arabia — Oxford Insights Govt AI Readiness
19th
UAE — Oxford Insights Govt AI Readiness
Top 20
Both UAE & Saudi in world's top 20 AI-ready governments
The structural argument is elegant: “The Gulf states do not treat artificial intelligence as a standalone technology sector. They see it as a tool for reshaping their economies beyond oil.” This is exactly what makes Gulf AI different from, say, European AI — it is not primarily about regulation and safety (though those matter); it is about economic transformation at the sovereign level, backed by sovereign wealth and political will that democracies struggle to match.
The report also addresses the differentiated positions of the four “AI Practitioner” states — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar — noting that while they are less advanced in infrastructure scale, they are actively building strategies, governance structures, and digital services that position them for the next phase of AI integration.
"The Gulf's transformation in artificial intelligence is not confined to the construction of data centres. It also reflects government preparedness and a clear political vision."
— Arab News analysis, "The AI Alliance Rewriting Washington's Gulf Strategy," August 2026
Why it matters: For businesses assessing the Gulf as an AI market, this analysis provides the geopolitical framing that explains why US technology companies are committing hundreds of billions of dollars to the region, why the A:5 reclassification happened, and why the Gulf’s AI buildout will continue regardless of short-term volatility. The US-Gulf AI alliance is structural, not transactional — and it is now the dominant force shaping the global AI infrastructure map.
04
[UAE] - AI Diplomacy · Global Outreach
The UAE's AI Influence Is Spreading: From India to Africa, Abu Dhabi Is Building the World's Most Active AI Diplomacy Network
The UAE’s AI diplomacy this week reached across two continents simultaneously. Earlier this year, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi led the UAE delegation to the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi — a summit that convened heads of state, government leaders, and policymakers from more than 100 countries to shape global AI governance frameworks. The UAE’s presence at the highest diplomatic level sent an unmistakable signal: Abu Dhabi sees itself not as a passive recipient of global AI policy but as an active architect of it.
The UAE’s AI diplomacy operates on multiple tracks simultaneously:
→ Africa: The $1 billion AI for Development initiative is moving from announcement to deployment, with ADEX actively engaging African governments on digital infrastructure, education, and healthcare AI applications
→ India: UAE-India AI cooperation deepened at the New Delhi summit, reflecting the two countries’ growing technology partnership and the large Indian AI talent pool working in UAE-based companies
→ US: The A:5 reclassification, GlobalFoundries CHIPS Award, and Stargate UAE campus represent the most structured bilateral AI infrastructure relationship between the US and any non-NATO partner
→ Global governance: The UAE’s seat at UNESCO’s International Center for AI Research and Ethics (ICAIRE) in Riyadh and its participation in the Global Partnership on AI give it influence over the regulatory frameworks being built for the next decade
100+
Countries at India AI Impact Summit — UAE led delegation
$1B
Africa AI for Development initiative in deployment
$100B
UAE AI contribution to GDP target by 2030
The UAE’s Artificial Intelligence and Data Authority — established by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid in June 2026 and chaired by Minister of State Omar Sultan Al Olama — is the institutional hub that coordinates this diplomacy. With 400 officials across the federal government now embedded in the agentic AI strategic track (this morning’s launch), the Authority has the operational depth to pursue both domestic deployment and international engagement simultaneously.
Domestically, the results are visible. UAE Pass — the national digital identity app — now serves more than 11 million users. 9 million travellers have passed through the UAE’s AI-powered biometric border. MOHRE has processed 13 million labour market transactions by AI in 2026 alone. The agentic AI strategic track launched today is the next layer on top of this foundation.
05
[QATAR / OMAN / BAHRAIN / KUWAIT] - AI Practitioners — August Check-In
The Closing Gap: How Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and Kuwait Are Each Quietly Advancing Their AI Decade
The Arab News analysis published this week provides the most useful framework yet for understanding what the Gulf’s four “AI Practitioner” states are actually doing — and how to think about the gap between their current position and the AI Contenders (UAE and Saudi Arabia).
Qatar (Oxford Insights: 63.59, ranked 54th globally) is the closest to Contender status. Its QR40 billion Digital Agenda 2030, the operational Qatar University Spark AI Hub, the GovAI Programme with Accenture/Microsoft/Oracle/Scale AI, and a Hukoomi digital government portal carrying 400+ services position it as the most implementation-ready of the Practitioner states. ROBOTECH 26 in Doha (October 27–29) is now 78 days away — expect it to become the most important AI and robotics event of Q4 2026 outside GITEX. Qatar’s national AI strategy explicitly positions it as a global competitiveness tool, not just a domestic modernisation programme.
Bahrain (Oxford Insights: 56.13, ranked 48th globally) this week confirmed that its standalone AI Act has received Royal Assent and is now law — making Bahrain the first GCC state with binding AI legislation. The Act introduces regulatory oversight, licensing requirements for AI deployment, and enforceable penalties for misuse. The Central Bank of Bahrain sandbox remains the most active fintech AI testing environment in the region. For enterprise AI companies, Bahrain now offers the Gulf’s clearest legal operating environment — a meaningful differentiator when making deployment decisions.
54th
Qatar — Oxford Insights Global AI Readiness
Law
Bahrain AI Act — GCC's first binding AI legislation, now enacted
61st
Oman — Oxford Insights Global AI Readiness
Oman (Oxford Insights: 58.94, ranked 61st globally) continues building its differentiated position. The AI Special Zone under Royal Decree 50/2026 is attracting genuine commercial interest from international data center operators and AI services firms — drawn by the submarine cable connectivity advantage and lower infrastructure costs relative to Abu Dhabi and Riyadh. Oman’s strategy of positioning itself as a non-aligned AI hub — offering Gulf presence without the geopolitical alignment pressures of either the UAE’s US-centric model or Saudi Arabia’s multi-vector approach — is resonating with a specific segment of international tech companies that the larger Gulf markets have not prioritised.
Kuwait (Oxford Insights: 49.86, ranked 83rd globally) remains the most challenged of the GCC’s AI Practitioner states — the only one to rank outside the global top 50 for AI readiness. The announced plan to double Kuwait’s data center count from five to ten is the most concrete infrastructure commitment Kuwait has made, but it still leaves significant ground to cover. The Microsoft digital skills programme and New Kuwait 2035 governance framework continue, and the Digital Cooperation Organisation (DCO) provides Kuwait with a multilateral digital economy platform that it is using to advance digital transformation beyond its own borders. The Middle East Institute’s recommendation for Kuwait to establish a national AI infrastructure company — similar to G42, HUMAIN, or Qai — remains the most important strategic decision Kuwait has not yet made.
GCC AI SNAPSHOT
Where Each Country Stands This Week
Twelve editions. When we launched Ai MAJLiS in May, the Gulf’s AI story was about ambition. Now, three months later, it is about execution — today’s agentic AI workshop with 100 federal officials, Bahrain’s AI Act now enacted, HUMAIN deploying 150,000 AI accelerators with AWS, Oman’s Royal Decree AI Zone attracting real commercial interest.
The Arab News analysis this week captured it well: this is not a technology story anymore. It is a story about how six sovereign states are using AI to transform their economies, build new sources of national competitiveness, and position themselves in a global order that is being rewritten around artificial intelligence. The Gulf is not a spectator in that rewriting. It is one of the authors.
LEAP is 21 days away. GAIN is 36 days away. The next six weeks will produce more Gulf AI announcements than any comparable period since the UAE launched its AI strategy in 2017. We’ll be here every Sunday to make sense of it all.
That’s our majlis for Issue #012. See you next Sunday — inshallah. 🫖
