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Dubai is poised to extend its digital transformation lead in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) following the approval of a raft of artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives by its highest ruling council.
- Dubai to use AI for digital transformation
- Dubai emerged as the leader for AI adoption
- Wikipedia traffic drops because of AI
- AI threatens the publishing industry
Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, approved the slew of AI initiatives during the Higher Committee for Future Technology Development and the Digital Economy. At the core of Dubai’s digital transformation plan is the launch of the AI Infrastructure Empowerment Platform, designed to accelerate the corporate adoption of emerging technologies.
The newly minted platform offers enterprises ready-to-use smart services without compromising security and reliability. Rather than building out AI systems from scratch, Dubai’s latest initiative will reduce costs for companies via a shared digital infrastructure featuring advanced resource utilization.
Furthermore, Al Maktoum gave the green light for the establishment of the Dubai AI Acceleration Taskforce to improve collaboration between government agencies. The task force draws membership from the Dubai Center for Artificial Intelligence (DCAI) and Chief AI officers from nearly 30 government agencies.
Amid the plans, Dubai’s authorities unveiled Unicorn 30 to accelerate the growth of local technology companies into billion-dollar enterprises. The initiative, a brainchild of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce, will provide financing, governance, and regulatory support to 30 Dubai-based enterprises.
“We are in a constant race to enhance the readiness of our government entities not only to keep pace with future transformations but also to make the most of AI tools in delivering services that are more efficient, secure, and innovative, in line with the Dubai Economic Agenda,” said Al Maktoum.
Additionally, Dubai’s authorities seized the opportunity to lay the foundations for the upcoming edition of GITEX Global in 2026 to be held at Expo City Dubai.
Al Maktoum noted that the new AI initiatives will play an important role in attracting top technology talent and capital to the emirate. He added that the city is already reaping the rewards from its pivot toward emerging technology, pointing to a burgeoning number of global enterprises setting up shop in the emirate.
Leading the UAE by a country mile
Dubai has emerged as the leader for AI adoption in the UAE, outclassing the regional competition through a combination of policy direction and capital injections. Last year, the government allocated large swathes of land for the construction of data centers while luring global players with 90% subsidies in a new licensing approach.
The emirate is also turning its gaze to partnerships, inking deals with international service providers to streamline adoption levels. A bird’s-eye view reveals that Dubai’s steady progress is fuelling AI adoption and innovation levels for the rest of the UAE, with a raft of localized large language models (LLMs) surging in popularity.
Wikipedia records steep drop in traffic following rising AI adoption
Meanwhile, the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization behind Wikipedia, has revealed that human traffic to the free encyclopedia has tanked by nearly 8% in four months, driven by the rise of AI chatbots.
According to a report, the Wikimedia Foundation uncovered the decline following an update to its bot detection systems. After updating its system, the team discovered that sophisticated bots originating in South America have been masquerading as human visitors to Wikipedia, prompting a new count.
“After making this revision, we are seeing declines in human pageviews on Wikipedia over the past few months, amounting to a decrease of roughly 8% as compared to the same months in 2024,” read a blog post by Marshall Miller.
While not explicitly disclosed, pundits suggest that the bots serve as data trawlers for AI service providers, gathering information to train their large language models (LLMs). Following a reclassification by the Wikimedia Foundation, the team confirmed its fears that chatbots and search engines are eating up a significant number of Wikipedia visitors by showing answers at the top of search results.
“We believe that these declines reflect the impact of generative AI and social media on how people seek information, especially with search engines providing answers directly to searchers, often based on Wikipedia content,” added Miller.
After acknowledging the changing trend, the Wikimedia Foundation noted that LLMs and search engines should encourage internet users to visit Wikipedia. The non-profit disclosed that fewer human visits will inevitably lead to fewer volunteers to make contributions to Wikipedia amid dwindling individual donors.
However, the foundation has unveiled new changes in response to a shifting internet landscape. To ensure that third parties access and reuse Wikipedia content responsibly, the Wikimedia Foundation has developed a new framework for attribution.
Furthermore, the team has launched two new readers to enhance the user experience for visitors and attract new volunteers through mobile editing and other initiatives. Under the Future Audiences project, the team is exploring new solutions to bring Wikipedia knowledge to young children who obtain the bulk of their information from YouTube and TikTok.
AI threatens the online publishing industry
Apart from Wikipedia, several online publishers have raised concerns over the grim impact of AI and other emerging technologies on the industry. A Pew Research Center report noted that yearly referral traffic from Google Search (NASDAQ: GOOGL) to premium publishers has plummeted, with 60% of all searches ending in AI summaries.
As AI search gathers steam, publishers are fighting back with lawsuits to seek compensation and bar companies from training their LLMs on published works. In 2024, the New York Times dragged OpenAI and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) to court over copyright infringement and the unauthorized use of content to train AI models.
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