Dubai's Blueprint for the Digital Economy

Transcript

All right, Dr. Marwan. It's the first time we we meet on stage, but we've known each other a while since we first met through your role in blockchain and now AI, which I'm excited for you to get into. Um, but just to start us off, um, Dubai obviously spent 5 years becoming the place that crypto moved to. Um, but this year Binance offered its UAE staff relocation to Asia, um, and capital started hedging with Hong Kong and Singapore. So, I guess my question is what changed and how is Dubai coming back?

>> First of all, good to be on stage with you for for the first time, but like you said, we've known each other for a long time. And it's for us in Dubai, we're we're a city that's based on being prepared and being agile to face anything. And we always give our people the flexibility to do whatever is comfortable for them, but also we have mechanisms to make sure that when we come back, we come back stronger and we learn from what happened to any experience, whether it was COVID or it was the financial crisis 2008. And also now with the current crisis, knowing that Dubai always has not only mechanisms, but strategies moving forward and focusing on how to come back and plan for it even before

the situation settles down. So, that being said, the numbers are very assuring. People are coming back in a rapid pace. People who left in the summer are coming back in September. Events are back in full flourish and starting from September as well. We've had Arab Travel Market with amazing numbers for the industry, but every kind of industry, whether it's tech, whether it's tourism, whether it's any other kind of niche industry, where it called Dubai home for events and also investments are coming back even if the eye numbers are very very high right now and and both the tech sec and also and the traditional financial sense.

>> So you would say the numbers bear it out. It's it's already coming back and events are back. >> 100% and there are no rockets coming in and all the stuff so that's reassuring. A lot of families that left getting the summer are back. A lot of residents and tourists are back. Hotels are being you know being filled as we speak as well and all driven by events and happenings in the UAE and offers as well and also we have today a Dubai Pavilion so you can visit us and look at properties that are available at a bargain price I would say as well so and they accept crypto so you are the perfect audience for that.

>> So in addition to real estate now I'm just kidding. So you you run AI for Dubai's economy but also the blockchain center. So it's interesting that both of those frontier technologies are under one roof. What can you do working with the government on those two technologies together that you might not be able to do with one or the other one just alone and siloed? >> So Dubai has been very lucky. We have talent from all over the world over here in Singapore the education level is very high but over in Dubai we have a lot of experts that come in from all walks of life from all you know uh experience levels and they understand their markets in their home countries plus in Dubai and international markets.

So you have this melting pot of talent whether it's in crypto and AI and cyber security and digital forensics and any kind of technology including in fintech including in niche kind of industries including mainstream industries like tourism as well. So having that kind of melting pot and really rubbing shoulders with other people really increases your value as a person and makes you improve incrementally day by day not on your core kind of knowledge but also in your range and general knowledge. And that's extremely important for you as a person to grow and and we see people waking up every day building new project. I just met a guy backstage as well who was

doing a totally different project and then now he joined another project that's actually US based. So that gives you an idea of how things are moving but also how people are working together collaboratively to achieve things that will not be possible anywhere else in the world. >> Is it true that there's now a government mandate that all government offices need to use not just normal chat AI but agentic AI coding AIs? >> Yeah, we have a federal level strategy and 50% of all government department services have to be powered by not AI agentic AI and that's a huge driver and it's a huge north star for everyone to follow not only on the government side but we eat our own dog food but also on the private side so people

can see if the government can do it and that's the more you know strict kind of setting imagine what we can do on the private side. >> So we started talking many years ago now about bringing crypto and bringing frontier technologies to Dubai and a lot of startups and institutions have moved there since then. My question is what are those startups and institutions asking for from you from the government now that they weren't asking maybe when you first met them? >> So a lot of it was around regulatory clarity in the early days of Binance and OKX and Bybit and Bitget and a lot of the mainstream exchanging moving to Dubai one of the first problems was

access to talent but they don't have that problem anymore. >> Talent. >> Yeah, talent was number one regulatory clarity was number two both are solved right now but more and more we see a lot of events moving to Dubai and right now also visibility. People don't know we don't do a lot of legwork when it comes to advertising Dubai as a destination for crypto, but word of mouth travels more powerful than you think. And a lot of people know about Dubai through word of mouth and through people's experiences in Dubai, which I think is the biggest advocate for Dubai.

People who are in Dubai cannot stop talking about in Dubai. People who left Dubai cannot stop stop talking about having FOMO of not being right now in Dubai. >> What are a couple of products or success stories, whether it's startups or institutions, that really kind of showcase what someone can expect who's thinking about bringing their business to Dubai? >> There's a lot of them, but the big exchanges are the big names. I'm not going to give them free plugs. I think I already did. But but there's a lot of other startups that went from nothing to >> Maybe we can plug one of the small startups?

>> Coinbase, for example, acquired a Dubai entity, and that went beyond the unicorn. But a lot of other ones from Easy Labs, for example, Binance is another support story that they support a lot of startups coming in from Dubai, but also through the Dubai entity moving to other places in the world. So also through the our system in the Dubai Blockchain Center, we had Eddy Chain which exited to a Canadian VC as well. The ecosystem is not only thriving, but the startups that are part of those that that ecosystem is thriving. For example, we have a right now an AI-centric um

founders hub. It's called the Dubai Founders HQ that has more than more than a thousand startups in AI and blockchain, and both of them are in the same physical area, but we have an online platform as well where anybody can apply. It's Dubai Founders HQ.com. That's the plug I'm willing to make. And that's really really a good ecosystem of startups meeting each other, talent crossing between one startup and the other. And we have cohorts ongoing. The current cohort started a week ago and goes until the end of the year. And then January they have the first, you know, competition.

>> Bringing us back to the topic of like why Dubai as opposed to another place. I I I think like Dubai really pioneered a lot of this for institutions, for startups competing on the same pitch of having clear rules and fast licensing. And for individuals competing on, you know, having access, being able to come into the country, being able to get a visa and taxes. So, there are other jurisdictions playing versions of those games, right? Maybe that have come later.

How does Dubai have something that something like Singapore or Hong Kong or some of the other emerging economies in the Middle East can't compete with? What what is the thing that other people can't choose new policies to rival? >> So, one of the things is we are the fastest moving when it comes to regulations. We are the fastest moving when it comes to licensing as well. We're one of the fastest when it comes to providing the whole ecosystem holistically, whether you are in the crypto space or in the AI space, whether you're looking for long-term kind of security. We have long-term vision like D33, Dubai Economic Agenda 2033, which focuses on five different areas. Fintech, proptech,

property technology basically. Logistics, health care, which we have longevity with health tech. And you've been to one of our conferences in Dubai, which was around longevity and health. And then the underlying theme is AI. And everything in Dubai like the the incubator accelerator that I was talking about with Dubai Founders HQ, the underlying theme is always AI and that's what we double down on. >> If Dubai could articulate its vision for AI, what would a what would an Dubai friendly AI look like? What does it want that ecosystem to look like? Who does it want to serve? What's the what's the outcome that would make Dubai happy?

>> We have actually published that in something called Dubai blueprint for AI and basically the focus is on the human. So instead of having an AI that alienates the humans or take over the human jobs, it's actually AI that augments the human and makes them not not only work in a more satisfactory way, but also empowers them to run a lot of agentic AI, make sure that he increases his own knowledge as well. So making sure that AI can supplement the human and augment him and having a human that has a better range and depth of knowledge by using these kind of tools such as agentic AI.

>> And the idea with that mandate is or that vision statement is that Dubai wants to support AI companies that enhance humans as opposed to ones that replace humans. >> 100% and give you time back not only for leisure, but also for doing things that matter. More meetings, more face-to-face, more events, more that kind of stuff instead of being stuck in a desk job with doing paperwork or answering email. All the employees in in my department and a lot of other government departments in Dubai and also in the whole UAE use agentic AI to optimize their time with email for example, prepare for meetings, optimize their meetings, optimize the follow-ups

on meeting. We have a policy for example called zero bureaucracy. So you don't follow up with people. You don't have to follow up with anybody else because your AI agent will do that. Your AI agent will help make sure that there is no follow-up that is needed because your job will be actually the ask will be done. >> And even you were saying like AI advising the government in government meetings. >> That's 100%. We go all the way to the cabinet where we have an AI agent that sits in all the cabinet meetings and it literally not only be passive but be active and proactive and answering questions and all that stuff.

>> I don't know if they have they have a name but they actually can can be called upon. I don't know one of the companies I remember they had this empty seat where that represents the customer which is that that is not there. I think it was Amazon or one of those companies one of the big tech companies but in in the UAE and Dubai we have an AI agent actually sitting in meetings to represent you know that the hindsight that the humans might not have in that whether it is statistics about the customers whether it's any kind of other insight or hindsight issue that the board would not otherwise be aware of.

>> And obviously you don't want some American proprietary AI company having built the model that you're using as the government advisor. >> 100% and we are very very focused on having sovereign AI but not one multiple for multiple kind of use cases including the attending and and assisting in meeting being a board member which is an AI that has that kind of oversight over the history but also insights for the future for that board. In addition to that we want AI that is good in our language and our culture and our ethics as well and we started on this very very early. We started in 2017 with an AI ethics committee that involved the triple helix which is education the

public sector and private sector. So we've been very early in that space. >> Switching gears slightly I mean you came to this role from time that you spent on the security side. One one type of messaging that I've been hearing coming out of Dubai a bunch, especially compared to other places, is talking about quantum. Um, is that something serious that Dubai is preparing for or is it still more of a conference topic? >> Uh, so for us in Dubai, we started our cybersecurity arm, which is Dubai Electronic Security Center. I was one of the first directors there, so I would consider myself a founder of Dubai Electronic Security Center. And within that digital cybersecurity arm of the government, we actually have the quantum

policy and quantum readiness that is already live and every government department has to abide by it, but also any critical information infrastructure has to be quantum ready from now, not waiting for quantum to happen. >> In our in our last few last few seconds, um, if there are people here in the audience that have businesses or personally, um, are thinking about moving to buy to Dubai, what's your like 30-second pitch to them about why they should do that? >> The onus is on you. Come to Dubai. Once you come to Dubai and you witness it yourself, uh, I mean, Dubai speaks for itself and it sells itself and you will never go back.

A lot of people actually do that. And I know a lot of my friends that actually moved to Dubai and I see people in the audience as well that moved to Dubai for a job or an event and ended up staying in Dubai and they love it even after the the events, they came back. >> Very cool. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Marwan. Um, it's a it's a pleasure and thanks Token for having us.