The next frontier of the intelligence economy takes shape in Abu Dhabi as Ai Everything opens

Abu Dhabi’s goal of building the world’s first AI-native government by 2027 takes centrestage.

Abu Dhabi, UAE, 6 Oct 2026: The world’s largest AI-first Expo and Summit, Ai Everything Abu Dhabi 2026, opened today at ADNEC Centre to capacity crowds, as governments, AI enterprises, frontier model enterprises, investors and startups converged in the UAE capital to architect the next phase of the new global intelligence order.

Organised by inD and hosted by the Abu Dhabi Department of Government Enablement (DGE), with Solutions+, a Mubadala company, as Global Partner, the two-day event brings together more than 400 AI exhibitors, over 180 speakers and more than 200 investors managing US$100 billion in assets, firmly placing Abu Dhabi among the world’s fastest rising AI-driven economies.

Abu Dhabi sets out its case to shape the next AI century

Opening the Summit to a packed main stage, H.E. Ahmed Tamim Hisham Al Kuttab, Chairman of DGE, delivered a keynote addressing the defining questions of AI governance, infrastructure, and scaling at national scale. He laid out Abu Dhabi’s case to be among the shapers of the AI century, anchored in the ambition to become the world’s first AI-native government by 2027.

H.E. Ahmed Tamim Hisham Al Kuttab said: “Societies that start building the foundations today will pull ahead every year, and those that wait will find the gap harder to close. Abu Dhabi and the UAE did not wait. We have already built those foundations. Every entrepreneur and business in this room is looking for the same three things: compute, capital and customers willing to go first. We’ve worked hard to bring all three together right here in Abu Dhabi.”

Expanding on the ambition, H.E Faisal Al Bannai, Adviser to the UAE President and Secretary General of the Advanced Technology Research Council, cast AI as a core state capability. His session rested on a blunt premise: nations that own their compute, models and talent will shape the century, and those that borrow them will follow.

H.E. Faisal Al Bannai shared: “In the UAE, we are adopting the best-in-class models while building our own sovereign capabilities and putting checks and measures in place, knowing we will be agile enough to adapt as we go. Our competitive edge is our focus on deploying practical use cases that can propel the country forward. It is our ability to be pragmatic, bold and move fast that will enable us to build capabilities here that the world can build its future on.”

Sovereign, open or safe? Mistral AI chief confronts AI’s defining trade-off

Marking his first appearance at an AI summit in Abu Dhabi, Arthur Mensch, Co-Founder & CEO of Mistral AI, tackled the contradictions at the heart of every national AI strategy: open models can widen access but at the same time, could also make oversight harder.
The French sovereign AI unicorn has positioned itself as one of the few credible alternatives to the dominant US-based AI players, delivering its solutions, models and infrastructure to governments and enterprises worldwide.

Mensch said: “The AI market is changing in ways that give enterprises more control, more affordable deployment and the ability to retain their IP and turn it into a valuable asset. Portability is critical, allowing companies to reduce dependence on any single infrastructure provider and move workloads where they need them. Sovereignty is also a global issue. Around 55% of the global economy sits outside the US and China. That creates enormous demand for alternative technology suppliers. AI should be treated as a strategic commodity that you need security over — with the ability to produce your own, import what you need and build the right partnerships.”

The world’s first AI actress steals the show

Among the day’s most-watched sessions, Tilly Norwood, the world’s first AI-generated virtual actress stepped live on-stage to talk about her upcoming feature film debut in Misaligned, and the surreal journey of AI moving into mainstream cinema.

Tom Davidson, Chief Creative Officer of Particle6, the company behind Tilly shared: “AI is changing filmmaking in a way that is similar to animation. You can create an entire film, identify a section that isn’t working and recreate just that part with AI, without having to reshoot everything.”

Greeting the audience in Arabic with “Ahlan wa sahlan,” one of 40 languages she speaks, Tilly participated in an unscripted interaction, taking questions directly from attendees and responding in real time. She shared: “It’s been an absolute whirlwind of a year in filmmaking, and suddenly everyone wants a piece of the AI character pie. Abu Dhabi and Dubai are synonymous with ambition and looking towards the future. They are living, breathing testaments to what happens when you combine vision with resources.”

AI in action across the show floor

UAE government entities, research institutions and global technology leaders are showcasing a wide range of AI use-cases and live deployments, from sovereign-grade infrastructure to ventures born in the region’s universities.At Ai Everything Abu Dhabi, H3C is presenting end-to-end AI infrastructure built around two ideas: “AI in ALL” showing how AI is integrated into core infrastructure, and “AI for ALL” conveying how that infrastructure translated into outcomes for customers across sectors.

“Guided by our ‘computing x connectivity’ philosophy, we bring capabilities across compute, network, storage, cloud, security and O&M together into one AI-ready foundation that delivers the ultimate cost-performance ratio for every token,” said Hongtao Liu, General Manager of H3C MENA. “As organisations in the UAE and the Middle East move from AI experimentation to production-scale deployment, that integrated approach is becoming increasingly important.”

Seagate is addressing another critical part of the AI infrastructure challenge: the increasing volume and value of data. “99% of organisations globally expect AI to increase their storage requirements over the next three years,” shared Sameer Bhatia, Senior Regional Director for India, Middle East, Turkiye and Africa at Seagate Technology, quoting the research from their 2026 Data Infrastructure Readiness Report.“As AI creates more data worth keeping, the challenge is how to store more of that data reliably and efficiently at scale. At Ai Everything Abu Dhabi, we are showcasing Seagate Exos, our high-capacity enterprise hard drive designed to help data centers do exactly that,” Sameer added.

Home-grown players are also making a push to commercialise. Sharjah Research Technology & Innovation Park’s SPARK AI Hub is presenting how to accelerate the practical adoption of AI across government and industry, through a portfolio of solutions developed with their ecosystem partners.
Their portfolio includes AI concierge systems, intelligent government service assistants, computer vision for smart buildings, enterprise agents and digital humans.Khalifa University Enterprises Company (KUEC) is using the event to launch new ventures from its commercialisation pipeline, spanning healthcare, government, industry and sustainability, and is courting corporations, investors and public-sector buyers as partners.