https://economymiddleeast.com/ : More than 400 artificial intelligence companies and startups have gathered in Abu Dhabi as one of the world’s largest AI-focused industry events opens with investors, government entities and technology leaders examining how the technology can move from experimentation into large-scale deployment. Ai Everything Abu Dhabi 2026 opened Tuesday at ADNEC Centre Abu Dhabi and runs through October 7, bringing together companies developing frontier models, AI infrastructure and real-world applications alongside policymakers, researchers, investors and business executives.

The event includes more than 180 international speakers, over 200 investors managing approximately $100 billion in assets, more than 50 government entities and over 20 unicorns.

Participants span more than 70 countries, while the program covers areas including sovereign AI, agentic systems, AI-native economies, intelligent infrastructure, energy, cybersecurity and enterprise deployment.

Global AI gathering
Organized by inD, Ai Everything Abu Dhabi is hosted by the Department of Government Enablement – Abu Dhabi, with Solutions+, a Mubadala company, serving as Global Partner.

The event is being held under the theme “The New Intelligence Order from Abu Dhabi, the AI Capital of the World,” with discussions examining how computing capacity, energy, capital, regulation and trusted infrastructure are becoming increasingly important as artificial intelligence moves into government and commercial operations.

Participating organizations include the Advanced Technology Research Council, G42, AWS, Alibaba Cloud, Mistral AI and Dell Technologies, alongside a broad range of technology companies, startups and UAE entities.

The event also brings global AI executives to the capital, including Arthur Mensch, co-founder and CEO of Mistral AI, and Marc Raibert, founder of Boston Dynamics and executive director of the Robotics and AI Institute.

Sessions across the two-day program address the balance between increasingly capable autonomous systems and the need for security, accountability and human oversight.

The event also places significant emphasis on the infrastructure required to operate advanced AI, including data centers, computing power, semiconductors, networks and the energy systems needed to support increasingly demanding workloads.

Deployment takes focus
Practical deployment is a central theme, with participating companies demonstrating AI applications already being introduced across government services, healthcare, financial services, scientific research, industrial operations and critical infrastructure.

Microsoft, VDURA and IFS are among companies presenting operational use cases. Ahead of the event, organizers highlighted examples ranging from AI tools being deployed to 35,000 Abu Dhabi Government employees to an industrial AI agent projected to generate $3 million in annual savings.

The official event program includes the AI Summit – New Intelligence and an Intelligent Infrastructure and New Energy track on October 6, followed by the AI Government Excellence Forum and AI 360 on October 7.

AI 360 is focused on moving enterprises beyond pilot programs toward full-scale adoption in healthcare, banking, manufacturing, retail, energy, mobility and government.

The event also features certified training programs and workshops covering areas such as quantum computing, collaborative AI agents, rapid prototyping, AI strategy and intelligent-system deployment.

More than 150 startups are participating through Ai StartX, which connects emerging companies with investors and potential customers.

A separate Supernova AI Global Pitch Competition will award $10,000 in equity-free funding to its overall winner on October 7.

Government AI expands
The gathering is taking place as Abu Dhabi accelerates one of its largest government technology transformation programs.

The Abu Dhabi Government Digital Strategy 2025-2027 is backed by AED13 billion ($3.54 billion) in investment and aims to make Abu Dhabi the world’s first fully AI-native government by 2027.

The strategy calls for 100 percent adoption of sovereign cloud computing across government, complete digitization and automation of government processes and the deployment of more than 200 AI-powered solutions.

It also includes a unified enterprise resource planning system and initiatives aimed at strengthening cybersecurity and building AI capabilities among government employees.

The Department of Government Enablement has said the strategy is expected to contribute more than AED24 billion to Abu Dhabi’s GDP by 2027 and create more than 5,000 employment opportunities.

The government is already scaling generative AI across its workforce.

In July, Abu Dhabi Government and Microsoft expanded Microsoft 365 Copilot to an additional 26,000 civil servants across 27 government entities.

Combined with 9,000 existing licenses, the rollout brought the total number of government employees equipped with the platform to 35,000.

Services become proactive
The transformation is also increasingly visible through TAMM, Abu Dhabi’s unified government-services platform.

Speaking during the opening of Ai Everything Abu Dhabi, Ahmed Tamim Hisham Al Kuttab, chairman of the Department of Government Enablement – Abu Dhabi, said government service-delivery costs had fallen by more than 30 percent over three years while customer satisfaction rose from 78 percent in 2022 to 92 percent in 2025.

Al Kuttab said the results challenge the assumption that better public services necessarily require higher delivery costs.

TAMM now brings together more than 1,200 government and private-sector services and increasingly uses AI to complete requests from beginning to end.

The government has also introduced AutoGov, which can initiate certain routine services proactively after receiving user permission, including handling recurring payments and preparing services around specific life events.

The wider objective is to reduce the amount of time people spend navigating administrative processes and allow government employees to focus more heavily on decisions requiring human judgment.

Al Kuttab also stressed the importance of safeguards as autonomous systems become more capable, including testing AI systems before deployment, maintaining clear accountability and ensuring decisions remain traceable.

Earlier Abu Dhabi push
Abu Dhabi’s role as host of the 2026 event was first announced during the Ai Everything Global Summit in February 2025.

That edition began with a summit in Abu Dhabi before its exhibition component moved to Dubai. It featured more than 500 global technology companies and startups from over 70 countries, alongside more than 200 speakers and 150 investors managing about $70 billion in assets.

More than 500 chief AI officers and technology executives also participated.

Organizers subsequently moved the flagship gathering into a dedicated Abu Dhabi format for 2026, with ADNEC Centre serving as the venue.

By September 2026, the event had sold out, with organizers reporting participation by more than 400 infrastructure companies, AI model developers, unicorns and startups.

The official pre-event announcement also said international exhibitors represented companies with more than $10 trillion in combined market capitalization.

More than 50 UAE government entities were scheduled to participate, creating a large showcase of public-sector AI applications.

AI infrastructure grows
Abu Dhabi has simultaneously expanded the underlying infrastructure and institutional partnerships intended to support its AI ambitions.

In 2025, the Department of Government Enablement announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft and G42 to support sovereign cloud infrastructure and government AI adoption.

The partnership forms part of the AED13 billion digital strategy and supports the planned deployment of more than 200 AI solutions across the emirate’s public sector.

Core42’s sovereign cloud infrastructure, powered by Microsoft Azure with additional sovereign controls, is being used to support government entities while maintaining requirements around data residency and control.

The wider transformation also includes Chief Data and AI Officer roles across Abu Dhabi Government entities, creating dedicated leadership positions responsible for AI adoption, governance and innovation.

TAMM has meanwhile continued evolving from a conventional digital-services platform toward an AI-based system capable of predicting and orchestrating services.

The TAMM 4.0 rollout introduced AutoGov alongside an AI assistant capable of supporting access to more than 1,100 public and private services.