UAE invests 1 billion dollars to expand artificial intelligence in Africa

On the sidelines of the meeting of the G20 member states in South Africa, the Minister of the Interior of the United Arab Emirates announced an increase in the country’s investment in the African continent to the amount of one billion dollars with the aim of developing artificial intelligence infrastructure and related services.

What is the purpose of the UAE‘s large investment in African countries?

According to Reuters, the United Arab Emirates plans to spend one billion dollars in African countries to help establish and expand the infrastructure needed to benefit from artificial intelligence and provide services based on this technology in the Black Continent. With this extensive investment, the UAE intends to help African countries in the path of national development and increase the speed of growth of the communities in this region thanks to the use of new solutions and technologies.

Saeed bin Mubarak Al Hajri, the Minister of Interior of the United Arab Emirates, spoke about the artificial intelligence initiative for development at the meeting of the G20 member states; A meeting is being held in Johannesburg. He has expressed hope that oil capital can help African countries to benefit from the benefits of new technologies in areas such as education, health and adaptation to climate change. He emphasized that from his country’s point of view, artificial intelligence is not just an emerging and promising industry; Rather, it will be a vital element of the human future, and for this reason, the UAE focuses on increasing the acceleration of innovation in this field to improve productivity and play an effective role in the global economy.

The commitment to the development of ethical and responsible artificial intelligence in an inclusive and non-exclusive manner is one of the other key goals of the United Arab Emirates, which was raised by the UAE Minister of Interior, and a new investment of one billion dollars in the African continent can help to achieve this goal. Of course, it is not yet clear which sectors and areas this amount will be allocated to, or which African countries will have a greater share of it.

It is worth noting that the United Arab Emirates is considered one of the largest investors in the African continent, along with powers such as China; So that the volume of its bilateral exchanges with this continent reached a record of 107 billion dollars last year with a growth of 28% compared to 2023. Also, the total investments made by the UAE in Africa during the years 2020 to 2024 have been announced as 118 billion dollars. For comparison, it should be noted that the total volume of Iran’s foreign trade in 1402 was equal to 153 billion dollars, of which only 36 billion dollars were related to exports.