United Arab Emirates launches training programme for chief AI officers
Chief artificial intelligence officers across federal government agencies of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are to receive two weeks of AI training to strengthen the country’s hand in the future of transformative technologies.
The UAE’s Federal Artificial Intelligence Programme was launched by the Office of Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications in 2019, and is run in collaboration with the University of Birmingham in Dubai. Its new training course has been designed specifically for chief AI officers and willl cover the latest trends, governance models, ethics and regulatory changes, as well as sector-specific applications of AI.
Trainees were selected following a UAE cabinet approval, based on each officer’s competence in the field of rapidly evolving technologies.
Omar Sultan Al Olama, the UAE’s minister of state for AI, said the programme would “drive a culture of positive transformation, fuel national ambitions and empower leaders capable of driving innovation”.
The government said the programme’s core aim is to “upskill and empower AI leaders” and ensure “sustained progress in adopting and developing smart solutions”.
It said the programme represented “a strategic move to enhance government readiness, fast-track advanced technology integration, and reinforce the UAE’s global leadership in artificial intelligence”.
Combining academic theory on AI with practical experience, the programme is expected to involve “intensive modules” on the “fundamentals and frontiers” of AI. Real-world use cases include health, cybersecurity, energy, urban development, government services, and entrepreneurship.
Upcoming training: How artificial intelligence can empower the civil service – find out more and register now
AI across the UAE
Over 370 people from more than 100 organisations have received training through the programme since 2019. While it is primarily aimed at government officials, it is also open to private sector employees and UAE residents.
In April this year, the government announced that 100 people had graduated from its latest course.
The new training course for chief AI officers comes after 22 chief AI officers were appointed across various government entities in Dubai last year.
Sheikh Hamdan, the Crown Prince of Dubai, said that these roles had been introduced in all the key government agencies, including the Department of Finance, Road and Transport Authority, and the Dubai Police.
He added that the decision would support the city’s vision of becoming a “global hub in developing and deploying AI solutions”.
Read more: ‘Radical reimagining’: lessons for the use of AI in public services and policymaking
Speaking at the Global Government Summit in Singapore a year earlier, the chief of government services for the UAE, HE Mohammed Bin Taliah, said that it was important that AI literacy be disseminated “across the community, because it’s going to be an integral part of our lives in the near future”.
The UAE has been busy promoting the development of AI as well as adopting the technology in government.
This year, it became the first country in the world to offer its population free access to ChatGPT Plus, the premium product of OpenAI’s AI chatbot. The move came about through a strategic partnership between OpenAI and the UAE government.
The partnership also included plans for a large-scale AI infrastructure project in Abu Dhabi, known as Stargate UAE.
AI is currently used to identify driving offences in the UAE, particularly people using their mobile phones while driving. Bin Taliah said at the summit that AI “allows law enforcement officers to… allocate their efforts more efficiently, delegating tasks that can be effectively handled by AI algorithms”.
Read more: UK peers urge tighter AI regulation for transparent and safe adoption in government
About Jack Aldane
Jack is a British journalist, cartoonist and podcaster. He graduated from Heythrop College London in 2009 with a BA in philosophy, before living and working in China for three years as a freelance reporter. After training in financial journalism at City University from 2013 to 2014, Jack worked at Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters before moving into editing magazines on global trade and development finance. Shortly after editing opinion writing for UnHerd, he joined the independent think tank ResPublica, where he led a media campaign to change the health and safety requirements around asbestos in UK public buildings. As host and producer of The Booking Club podcast – a conversation series featuring prominent authors and commentators at their favourite restaurants – Jack continues to engage today’s most distinguished thinkers on the biggest problems pertaining to ideology and power in the 21st century. He joined Global Government Forum as its Senior Staff Writer and Community Co-ordinator in 2021.
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