Benchmark Drilldown · Updated 2026-05-04
UAE AI Office
AI policy execution and coordination
- Role
- AI policy execution and coordination
- Region
- UAE
- Type
- Key body
Detail
The UAE AI Office was established alongside the AI Minister in 2017 as the Minister's executive office. Functions: (1) coordinating AI strategy implementation across ministries; (2) issuing the AI Ethics Principles (2022) and AI Charter (2024); (3) managing talent programmes such as UAE AI Camp. Assessment: compared with Singapore's SNDGO (~150+ staff), the UAE AI Office's public headcount is smaller (~50) and relies more on cross-agency partnerships for execution. This "small core + many external" model's effectiveness depends on royal resolve and capital injection; it lacks the institutionalised inter-agency checks of SNDGO.
References
Continue exploring this region
Region overview
UAE Core Strategy
UAE's core AI strategy is AI Strategy 2031, with the public year marked as 2017/2021.
Region overview
UAE Investment Scale
UAE's AI investment signal is: $100B MGX fund / $15.2B Microsoft.
Region overview
UAE Governance Model
UAE's AI governance model can be summarised as: Voluntary ethics code, sandbox-friendly.
Region overview
UAE Core Strength
UAE's comparative strength versus Singapore is: Largest capital pool, world's first AI Minister.
Core strategy
AI Strategy 2031
Among the world's earliest national AI strategies; targets AI contributing 33.5% of GDP
Core strategy
AI Ethics Principles
Voluntary ethical guidelines
Data note
Curated benchmark drilldown profile, last updated 2026-05-04.