United Arab Emirates

Although research and development in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not one of the UAE’s main priorities, in the past twelve years (2008 - 2020) we were able to witness a steady increase in the number of companies working in the sector. In 2008 there were only 20 entities developing AI solutions, but that number saw an exponential growth peaking at nearly 172 in 2019.

Number of Companies vs Funding

Most of the companies (26) in the analyzed time period received seed funding of less than one million USD. With the second largest share were the organizations that were able to secure nearly 1.4 million USD. The next largest funding rounds are ranging from 4.6 million USD per company all the way to 64.256 million USD.

Number of companies vs industries

An overwhelming number of companies work in the Fintech sector (70) and only few develop AI solutions for energy-related initiatives. This is a bit unusual for a region famous for its resource extraction and energy production. Data analytics (which is in second place) is represented with only 21 organizations.