Sovereign AI strategies in the GCC countries

AI sovereignty scale

GCC countries have been focusing on diversifying their economies over the past decades, preparing for a future in which they rely less on fossil fuels. Finance, tourism and transit travel became important sectors. Now, artificial intelligence presents a new opportunity to add to the portfolio. With it comes the need for national policies, to maintain a certain level of AI sovereignty.

AI sovereignty should be viewed as a sliding scale, rather than in absolute terms. No country in the world is 100% sovereign, when it comes to AI, Giorgio explains. ‘That would be extremely challenging. You would have to possess critical earth, the infrastructure and knowledge to mine it and extract the metals, a semiconductors industry, sufficient energy sources and data centers, and of course the highly skilled professionals for the development and implementation of large language models. A country like China is about 65% sovereign, which is quite impressive.’

Race for resources

This means that countries must choose which areas of the AI supply chain they want to strategically focus on to obtain a level of AI sovereignty that they deem acceptable. ‘This starts with vision,’ Giorgio continues. ‘Then you need sufficient capital and cheap energy. The Gulf countries have access to all three of these. But there is a fourth important resource required: the right people. In AI technology there are critical roles that only very few people can fulfil. There is an enormous competition, worldwide, to attract these specialists.’

Large demand for AI-specialists

‘True,’ Abraham adds, ‘these AI super specialists are key in driving AI development. But, at TMC we also see something else. We get many consultancy requests in the field of data transformation and AI, from players like start-up companies to national wealth funds of several GCC countries. These data transformations are needed, for example, to turn large collections of information into datasets that can be used for AI development purposes. So next to the race for hiring the world’s brightest minds, on all levels in the field of AI there is a large demand for engineers, data analysts, cybersecurity experts and data center specialists.’

Data centers and computing power

Indeed, GCC countries need to extract human resources from outside the countries. At the same time, they are especially adept for housing AI data centers. This can lead to a high level of sovereignty when it comes the computing power required for running LLM’s. All Gulf countries invest large sums of money in data centers and other relevant infrastructure. Abraham: ‘They need this infrastructure for their own highly ambitious government AI-programs, such as TAMM in Abu Dhabi, which touch upon almost all aspects of the lives of people and businesses. In 2030, several GCC countries envision an AI-first government. The organizations that they put in place to make these visions reality have strong mandates to do whatever is needed.’

AI-first governments

‘AI-first governing requires a very high level of data security, given the sensitivity of the data that AI-systems work with’, Abraham continues. ‘Data storage and data sharing need to be safe and ethically responsible.’

Giorgio agrees: ‘The main reference when it comes to data protection is the EU’s GDPR. GCC countries view these standards as an example. And especially in the financial sector lots of testing and sandboxing is performed within very strict, ultra-regulated environments, before any technology is made public. But then, when it is made public, governments in the Gulf states are not afraid to really build on AI technology and take big leaps forward.’

Importing and exporting AI-resources

So, in a part of the world where energy supplies are abundant, especially if renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and nuclear are developed, countries will probably need to keep importing semiconductors and technical professionals. But with a strong focus on developing data centers, yielding massive computing power, which they could also export to other parts of the world, GCC countries may position themselves as an important AI-hub soon, and by doing so enhance their AI-sovereignty.