This Emirati start-up is building the UAE's first AI-powered electric bike

For Rashid Al Salmi, engineering an electric motorbike was more than just a technical challenge; it was a way to express identity and ambition. The founder of Sulmi, the UAE-born mobility innovation company, has spent more than 16 years in the automotive world. Yet nothing, he says, compares to creating a product that reflects the country he grew up in.

“For me, Made in the Emirates is more than a label – it is a declaration of capability, confidence, and identity,” he tells GN Focus. That belief anchors Sulmi’s journey, especially the development of the EB-One Founder’s Edition, the UAE’s first all-electric, AI-powered motorbike designed, engineered, and built entirely in the country.

Al Salmi says the decision to manufacture locally was intentional. “Engineering the EB-One in the UAE was a deliberate decision. It allows us to build local talent, create homegrown IP, and contribute directly to the nation’s industrial strategy under the Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology (MOIAT) and Operation 300bn. It also sends out a message that we are no longer just consumers of global innovation – we are creators of it.”

The Founder’s Edition is limited to just 200 units, and two-thirds have already been booked. The first customer delivery is scheduled for February 2026, marking the beginning of Sulmi’s entry into the market and the UAE’s push towards high-performance, homegrown electric mobility.

Sulmi’s story began in 2019, when Al Salmi set out to prove that a premium electric motorbike could be designed from scratch in the UAE. By 2023, the team had moved from concept to a full prototype. Today, the EB-One stands as a symbol of what local engineering can achieve.

But building a machine with no regional precedent came with unavoidable challenges.

“There was no roadmap for something like this in the region. We had to write the playbook ourselves,” Al Salmi says.

From drivetrain development to structural engineering, each stage demanded original solutions. The team had to design a drivetrain capable of performing reliably in the UAE’s extreme heat, create a lightweight hybrid structure using metal and 3D-printed composite parts, and integrate SIRA ¬ Sulmi’s real-time AI safety system combining cameras, sensors, and predictive analytics.

“We are engineering a truly homegrown product – not assembled from global kits, but built from first principles,” emphasises Al Salmi.

Sulmi’s work reflects the UAE’s broader move into advanced manufacturing, AI, and sustainable mobility. Al Salmi sees the company contributing on multiple levels.

“Our contribution is threefold,” he explains. “Industrialisation proves that high-tech vehicle manufacturing can happen in the UAE and scale globally. AI mobility is another dimension. With SIRA, the UAE becomes an early builder of AI-powered motorcycle intelligence, not just hardware; and talent creation – every engineer we develop becomes part of the UAE’s future knowledge economy.”

He adds, “Our goal is not just to build a bike, it is to build an ecosystem.”

AI is a core part of that ecosystem. Rashid believes artificial intelligence will shape the region’s future of transportation systems in fundamental ways. “AI will redefine mobility in three core areas: safety, efficiency, and policy,” he says.

SIRA’s features, from 360-degree awareness and real-time risk prediction to adaptive alerts and predictive maintenance, represent the early layers of what AI-driven motorcycle intelligence could look like.

“We see Sulmi as one of the UAE’s early contributors to the foundation of AI-powered transportation.”

His leadership philosophy, he says, is the result of years spent working with machines and learning from people. “My early experience in tuning cars, working in the automotive industry, and running a performance garage taught me perseverance and humility,” he says.

Two personal influences shaped him most. He says, “My father, whose discipline and principles shaped my resilience, and my mentor at Emirates Post, who changed how I understood leadership, purpose, and service.”

Those lessons guide his view that innovation is a responsibility as much as a technical craft.

“These experiences taught me that innovation is not only technical, it is moral. You must believe in your country, believe in people, and never stop trying,” Al Salmi says.

While the EB-One is Sulmi’s starting point, Al Salmi sees it as the foundation for a much larger mobility vision. “Sulmi is a global company born in the UAE and not limited to motorcycles,” he points out.

Over the next decade, the company aims to build multiple electric vehicle platforms, expand SIRA into one of the world’s leading motorcycle autonomy systems, grow Sulmi Energy with advanced smart battery technologies, and establish manufacturing operations both in the UAE and internationally.

“What excites me most is not the product – it is the possibility that the UAE will have its own mobility champion,” he says.