World Bank ranks UAE among global leaders in artificial intelligence

Dubai: The World Bank has identified the UAE as one of the world's leading emerging powers in artificial intelligence, citing its sustained investment, advanced institutional framework and growing ability to develop sophisticated AI models while attracting global talent and accelerating adoption across the economy. 

In its World Development Report 2026, titled "The Promise of Artificial Intelligence", the World Bank said the UAE is among a small group of countries making tangible progress in building advanced foundation AI models from scratch. 

The report highlighted the country's Falcon family of large language models, developed by the Technology Innovation Institute, describing the organisation as one of the world's leading developers of open-source, open-weight AI models that can be freely downloaded and adapted by researchers and developers.

The report also pointed to the UAE's strong performance in attracting AI talent. Alongside Luxembourg, Australia, Saudi Arabia and Switzerland, the UAE recorded one of the highest net inflows of AI professionals per 10,000 LinkedIn members in 2025, according to the 2026 AI Index. 

It also ranked first globally for positive net inflows of leading AI authors and inventors, reaching a score of 2.58, a sharp reversal from its historical average between 2011 and 2024. 

The World Bank attributed part of this success to long-term residency incentives aimed at AI experts and specialists in machine learning, model development and AI engineering.

The report further ranked the UAE among the world's top 10 countries for ChatGPT usage relative to internet users, reflecting the rapid uptake of generative AI by individuals and businesses. 

It also highlighted the country's integration of AI literacy into its national skills framework, its appointment of chief AI officers across federal entities, and the establishment of a unified federal authority for artificial intelligence, data and digital government. 

The World Bank said the UAE offers a model for countries seeking not only to adopt AI technologies but also to adapt and develop them locally to meet national linguistic and economic needs.