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2026-07-12 Cyber

Lithuania and Poland to jointly develop European AI gigafactory

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Posted by Skidmark 2026-07-12 06:27|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [1828 views ] Top

1 How the Iran war has disrupted Abu Dhabi's AI strategy

Arabic AI models still plagued by quality issues

While UAE salaries easily compete with Silicon Valley paychecks, the country has yet to appear in the top tier of global AI engineering pools, according to a 2026 report by the Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council.

"Despite massive investments, much of the region's AI ecosystem continues to rely on foundational models, algorithms and benchmarks developed elsewhere, making it a consumer rather than a primary producer," Fatima Abu Salem, a professor of computer science at the American University of Beirut, told DW. "This dependence is reinforced by reliance on expatriate expertise and foreign academic institutions for advanced research, training and validation."

[For a while, the UAE also tried to position itself as a technological swing state between the US and China. However, this balancing act drew scrutiny from Washington and in 2023, the UAE severed all AI ties with China according to a report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.]

Researchers have criticized the quality of the UAE's Arabic AI models, such as Jais. Speaking on condition of anonymity, they told DW that they found results from Jais "surprisingly poor." In September 2025, the university launched "K2 Think", an open-source AI reasoning model. Yet again, independent researchers said the performance of the K2 Think model was overstated.

However, as analyst Sebastian Sons pointed out, "at this point, the UAE has invested so much into its AI strategy that turning around won't be an option." In his view, for the UAE it's much more than a nice-to-have project, it's about becoming an irreplaceable and leading key player in the field.

This echoes a sentence by the AI Minister Omar Sultan Al Olama. As early as 2018, he already said: "Data is the new oil."

Posted by Skidmark 2026-07-12 06:56|| 2026-07-12 06:56|| Front Page Top

2 First we got AI and that was good
Cause we love LGBTQ+ and (unwedded) motherhood
Then China got AI but that's okay
Cause the balance of power's maintained that way Who's next?

Posted by Grom the Reflective 2026-07-12 07:25|| 2026-07-12 07:25|| Front Page Top

3 *happy sigh* Tom Lehrer-ish!

Posted by trailing wife 2026-07-12 09:17|| 2026-07-12 09:17|| Front Page Top

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