Abu Dhabi is positioning itself as a global hub for applied AI, large-scale compute infrastructure and real-world deployment as the UAE capital prepares to host Ai Everything Abu Dhabi 2026 at ADNEC Centre from 6–7 October.
The event comes as global AI spending is forecast to reach nearly US$2.59 trillion in 2026, up 47% from 2025, according to Gartner. The sold-out Expo and Summit will bring together more than 400 AI infrastructure builders, model makers, unicorns and startups, alongside 200-plus investors representing US$91B in AUM and participants from 60 countries.
More than 180 speakers are scheduled, including Arthur Mensch, Co-Founder and CEO of Mistral AI, and Marc Raibert, Founder of Boston Dynamics, who will appear together in the UAE for the first time to discuss sovereign AI, industrial intelligence and emerging alliances.
AI-Native Government
More than 50 UAE government entities are participating, led by the Department of Government Enablement, Abu Dhabi (DGE).
The department is overseeing Abu Dhabi Government’s ambition to become the world’s first AI-native government by 2027, integrating more than 40 entities into an AI-driven ecosystem.
More than 100 AI use-cases are already live across Abu Dhabi’s public services, supported by a US $3.54B investment programme.
H.E. Wesam Lootah, Director General of GovDigital at DGE, said: “Abu Dhabi will become the world’s first AI-native government next year, and the evidence is already clear in the way we’re redefining public services for millions of people and businesses. We have built the blueprint, and Ai Everything Abu Dhabi is our invitation to the world to examine it, to see what intelligent governance looks like at scale, and the enormous benefits it delivers to people’s lives today.”
The event will also showcase AI applications across banking, healthcare, energy and education. Solutions+, a Mubadala company and Global Partner, will focus on the implementation of AI across enterprise workflows.
“At Solutions+, we help bridge national ambition with operational delivery by bringing together sovereign infrastructure, enterprise platforms, trusted partners, and the expertise required to embed AI into real services and workflows. As Global Partner of Ai Everything Abu Dhabi 2026, we look forward to demonstrating how agentic AI, strengthened by human judgement and accountability, can improve services, raise productivity, and create measurable value. This is how we turn AI into more than a technology investment – a driver of sustainable growth and national progress,” said Nasir Al Nabhani, Managing Director, Solutions+.
Sovereign AI
The Technology Innovation Institute (TII), the applied research arm of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council, will showcase 23 demonstrations spanning nine research centres. Its work includes Falcon-H1 Arabic, a large language model trained on Arabic data, and GeoAI, a machine-learning model of the northern UAE’s subsurface geology designed to support mineral exploration.
International technology companies including AWS, Alibaba Cloud, Cerebras, Dell, HPE, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, Red Hat and Snowflake are also among the exhibitors, spanning chips, cloud infrastructure and enterprise software.
Mistral will use the event to address questions around AI autonomy and control. Mohamed Zouari, Mistral’s Managing Director MEA, said: “We believe that control is becoming the defining topic in AI adoption. This is what we are building with Abu Dhabi’s most innovative organisations and what we will demonstrate at Ai Everything Abu Dhabi.”
The programme will cover trusted deployment, autonomous systems, agentic AI, computing infrastructure and AI governance, alongside practical training in areas including multi-agent workflows, rapid prototyping and model development.
Together, the event will showcase Abu Dhabi’s push to translate AI investment and research into government services, industrial applications and broader economic deployment.
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