Dubai is raising its targets for its AI campus, while Scale AI says it has opened an office in the UAE. The announcements at the Dubai AI Festival show the city pairing a bigger recruitment pitch with a new foothold for a prominent AI services firm.
Watch Desk analysis
What happened
Fortune says the festival, held across Monday and Tuesday, drew more than 20,000 participants from 100 countries. More than 100 Chinese technology companies exhibited, alongside a pavilion featuring 23 Indian firms working in cloud, data centres and GPU infrastructure.
Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum announced that Dubai’s AI Campus now aims to attract more than 1,000 specialist AI companies and create over 5,000 highly skilled jobs by 2030. Fortune says the campus, launched in May 2024, has already attracted more than 500 AI companies and over AED 1 billion in private investment, and generated more than 2,000 technology jobs.
The other notable move: Scale AI announced it is open for business in the UAE, with an office at the Dubai International Financial Centre. The company develops evaluations and benchmarks for advanced AI models and says it will help UAE institutions build and deploy AI systems. Scale AI’s global managing director Trevor Thompson described the office as a long-term commitment, Fortune reports.
Why it matters
The campus targets are a bid to turn Dubai’s AI ambitions into a larger local industry, while Scale AI’s arrival brings a company focused on evaluating and preparing AI systems for use. That combination matters to businesses and public institutions weighing where to build, buy or deploy AI, and to the region’s competition for specialist firms and talent.
There are already reported signs of momentum, but targets are not outcomes. The next test is whether the new commitments translate into lasting jobs, investment and systems in use, rather than impressive figures confined to a festival stage.
Our read
Dubai is making a serious play for a larger role in the AI economy, and Scale AI’s office gives the story a concrete business development beyond the grand targets. The figures are worth watching, not applauding in advance: a campus can count companies and investment, but the harder measure is what those organisations build and sustain locally.
What to watch
- Whether Scale AI announces UAE projects, customers or hiring.
- How the campus measures progress towards its 2030 company and jobs targets.
- Whether other AI firms establish substantial operations in the UAE.
Discussion spark: Should governments compete to attract AI firms with company and jobs targets, or judge success mainly by what those firms build and deliver locally?
Sources and evidence
- Source update (28 October 2026, 10:33 UTC)
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