Masdar City is positioning itself at the intersection of artificial intelligence, advanced technology and clean energy as Abu Dhabi builds an ecosystem spanning AI research, healthcare, genomics and the infrastructure required to scale advanced computing.
Its AI cluster brings together institutions including Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, the Advanced Technology Research Council and the Technology Innovation Institute, while the wider free zone hosts companies across AI, life sciences, clean energy, smart mobility, agrotech and space.
Dawson’s decision to establish an AI Innovation Hub through his businesses adds an international capital and entrepreneurship dimension to Abu Dhabi’s strategy. The move comes as the emirate increasingly links AI deployment with energy and data-centre infrastructure, including through a 2025 collaboration between ADNOC, Masdar, XRG and Microsoft.
Dawson spoke with Finance Middle East about why he chose Abu Dhabi, the role of Masdar City in his expansion plans and his future ambitions for his latest GCC venture.
Dawson’s Partnership With M42
Dawson’s 10X Health and 10X REVIV, partnered with Abu Dhabi-based M42 to launch 10XREVIV in Masdar City last year
M42 is an Abu Dhabi-based global health firm launched in 2023 via a merger between G42 Healthcare and Mubadala Health.
The venture is bringing an AI-powered Precision Nutrition System to the UAE while Dawson and business partner Sarah Lomas develops MyiOX Health together: a broader platform designed to connect genetics, biomarkers, nutrition, lifestyle data and clinical care.
Beyond Masdar: Health and SMEs
While Masdar is attracting business moguls like Dawson, the entrepreneur is looking at Masdar city as a starting point: part of a broader ecosystem inside the Emirates.
“What we are building in Masdar City is much bigger than establishing a Middle East office. We are creating an AI Innovation Hub focused on two enormous opportunities: human health and the scaling of small and medium-sized businesses” the entrepreneur told Finance Middle East.
Across Cardone Ventures, 10X Health and 10X REVIV, Dawson says there are currently more than 25 internal AI innovation initiatives underway, with the common objective of using business, biological and operational data to create measurable outcomes.
“We see AI as the connective tissue between data and action in both industries,” Dawson said.
That places Masdar City at the centre of a broader strategy spanning healthcare, business intelligence and AI-enabled operating systems.
“We don’t want this to be simply another office,” Dawson said. “We want it to become an innovation laboratory where exceptional AI talent can work alongside entrepreneurs, operators, scientists and healthcare professionals to solve real commercial problems.”
Why Masdar City?
Dawson says the choice of Masdar City and Abu Dhabi was deliberate.
“Abu Dhabi’s leadership isn’t simply talking about artificial intelligence; it is building an ecosystem around it: capital, infrastructure, education, research, talent and commercial application.”
For Dawson, Masdar City’s proximity to MBZUAI and its wider concentration of AI and technology organisations is central to that proposition.
“Our objective is to recruit exceptional AI talent from around the world and combine that technical capability with something we can uniquely contribute: real-world operating environments, real businesses, real health applications and enormous quantities of practical data from which AI solutions can be developed and tested.”
The Importance of Localisation
In a region where national culture leads, entrepreneurs are catching on as GCC governments pursue diversification agendas tied to their national agendas and populations. The importance of local production is catching on with the GCC states mandating localisation across energy, AI and defence.
Sharjah, for instance, announced a Dh 20,000 salary floor in government departments earlier this year while Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are building their own homegrown defence funds under MASNA Ventures and the EDGE Group.
The model is therefore less about selling existing American products into the region and more about building from Abu Dhabi.
“We aren’t coming to Abu Dhabi simply to sell American products or services into the Middle East. We want to build here. We want to recruit here. We want to innovate here. And ultimately, we want technologies developed here to be deployed globally” said Dawson.
Masdar’s AI Infrastructure
The proposition extends beyond individual companies.
Masdar City is being built around the idea that physical infrastructure, technology and specialised ecosystems can reinforce one another. Its AI cluster is intended to support intelligent systems addressing challenges across sectors, including healthcare and smart cities, while its free-zone model gives technology companies access to a concentrated business environment.
That convergence is also visible at the infrastructure level. Masdar has been working with ADNOC, XRG and Microsoft on AI deployment and energy infrastructure linked to the growing requirements of data centres and advanced computing.
For AI startups, the attraction of Masdar City is increasingly less about office space than proximity: to capital, talent, research institutions, healthcare infrastructure, energy and companies working on adjacent technologies.
Dawson’s expansion offers a useful example of that model in practice. His ambition is not simply to build another health-tech product, but an AI-enabled platform connecting biological intelligence, personalised recommendations and clinical connectivity alongside a broader innovation hub for business scaling.
Masdar City is still taking shape, but the latest US-backed expansion points to a broader convergence between American capital, Abu Dhabi’s AI ambitions and the infrastructure of the global economy.
“That’s what we see happening in Abu Dhabi and that’s why we want Masdar City to become an important part of the global innovation platform we’re building across Cardone Ventures, 10X Health and 10X REVIV.”
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