Dubai's AI-Native Financial Centre: Mohammad Alblooshi on What Comes Next

As global markets shift from artificial intelligence experimentation to measurable execution, Dubai is moving rapidly to embed AI directly into its economic infrastructure. At the center of this transformation is Mohammad Alblooshi, Chief Executive Officer of the DIFC Innovation Hub. Under his leadership, the DIFC is advancing its ambition to become the world’s first AI-native financial centre, driven by the rapid expansion of the Dubai AI Campus, which recently surpassed its target of housing 500 AI companies two years ahead of schedule.

In this conversation, Alblooshi breaks down the UAE’s aggressive timeline for agentic AI integration across both government and private sectors. He also outlines the critical roles that regulation, capital, and talent will play in scaling AI responsibly, and how platforms like the Dubai AI Festival are designed to turn dialogue into actionable partnerships.

1. What distinguishes Dubai’s approach to AI as the world moves from experimentation to execution?

The question facing governments, businesses and investors is no longer whether to adopt AI, but how quickly they can turn adoption into measurable value. What sets the UAE apart is that it has made AI part of how the nation operates.

This began in 2017, when the UAE appointed the world’s first Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence. That commitment has continued under the leadership of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and the directives of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the UAE.

This year, the UAE committed to transitioning 50 per cent of government services and operations to agentic AI within two years. Dubai has extended that ambition to the private sector, with plans to support 295,000 companies to adopt AI. The foundations are already in place: more than 70 per cent of working-age adults in the UAE use generative AI, and the GCC reports the highest enterprise AI adoption of any region, at 84 per cent.

2. What role are DIFC and Dubai AI Campus playing in translating AI adoption into economic value?

DIFC is at the heart of this shift. As we advance our ambition to become the world’s first AI-native financial centre, we are embedding AI across our regulatory frameworks, operations, talent and infrastructure. That transformation is expected to generate USD 3.5bn (AED 12.9bn) in economic value and create 25,000 jobs.

Dubai AI Campus brings founders, investors, enterprises and regulators together within one of the world’s most trusted financial jurisdictions. It surpassed its target of 500 AI companies two years ahead of schedule and is now home to 505 AI companies, which have created more than 2,020 jobs.

For global AI firms, Dubai is not simply a market. It is a launchpad to scale across the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, and on to the world.

3. What needs to happen next for organisations to scale AI responsibly and effectively?

Globally, nine in ten organisations now use AI, yet fewer than half have scaled it. The advantage will belong to those that close this gap first. The next phase will be defined less by the capability of the models themselves than by the institutions that put them to work.

That means regulation that builds trust, capital that funds scale and talent that turns intelligence into outcomes. Financial centres sit at the intersection of all three. Those that act now, by embedding intelligence into how markets are governed, financed and run, will set the standards that others follow.

The journey from adoption to execution will demand decisive leadership, meaningful investment and trusted governance. That is why platforms such as Dubai AI Festival matter: they turn dialogue into the partnerships that take AI forward.

 

 

Dive into the frontiers of agentic AI and discover how autonomous systems are actively reshaping enterprise operations, finance, and cybersecurity in The State of AI Report 2026.