The United Arab Emirates has launched a new Arabic language artificial intelligence (AI) model as competition to develop advanced AI technologies intensifies across the Gulf region.
The UAE, a major oil exporter, has invested billions of dollars to establish itself as a global AI leader, leveraging strong ties with the United States to gain access to cutting-edge technology.
During a recent visit to the UAE, U.S. President Donald Trump announced an AI agreement that paves the way for the country to access advanced AI semiconductors from American firms, marking a significant milestone for the Gulf nation.
Developed by Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), the Falcon Arabic model is designed to capture the linguistic diversity of the Arab world using a high-quality native Arabic dataset. The model reportedly matches the performance of others up to ten times its size.
Faisal Al Bannai, ATRC’s secretary general, emphasized that leadership in AI now focuses on creating powerful, practical, and universally usable tools rather than simply scaling up.
In addition, ATRC introduced Falcon H1, a system that reportedly outperforms competitors from Meta and Alibaba by reducing the computing power and technical expertise needed to operate advanced AI technologies.
AI was also a key topic during President Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, where the kingdom is positioning itself as a future hub for AI development outside the U.S. Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia launched a company dedicated to developing and managing AI technologies and infrastructure, aiming to deliver one of the world’s most powerful multimodal Arabic large language models.
