At GITEX 2025 in Dubai, Marc Einstein, Research Director at Counterpoint, sat down with one of the UAE’s leading researchers, Dr Najwa Aaraj, CEO of the Technology Innovation Institute (TII) in Abu Dhabi. Dr Aaraj highlighted some of her organization's cutting-edge research in areas such as robotics, sovereign AI applications and quantum computing, which are enabling Abu Dhabi’s bold vision to become the world’s first AI-native government. The conversation delves into how TII’s strategy seamlessly moves high-level research out of the lab and into real-world applications, which benefit governments, citizens and enterprises both locally and abroad.

The Interview

Key Takeaways from Discussion

Driving sovereign AI with Falcon

• Dr Aaraj highlighted Abu Dhabi’s strategic shift toward open-source foundational models with the Falcon series.

• Localised approach enables building tailored applications, a major theme in the current geopolitical tech landscape.

• Falcon models cover LLMs, Edge AI, and Arabic-optimised versions as well.

• Falcon supports 18 languages and is widely adopted across the world, including Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, for applications in healthcare, energy and more.

Privacy, security and ethical AI by design

• TII approaches AI with a “security-first” mindset, embedding safety and privacy into the development pipeline.

• Ethical AI is viewed as an evolving standard to ensure it is unbiased to have a clean and high-quality data pipeline when training and fine-tuning the models.

• Investments span privacy-preserving ML, federated learning, fully homomorphic encryption, and model-level security.

Beyond AI: Focus on robotics, quantum computing and talent development

• Abu Dhabi is building one of the world’s most advanced robotics and quantum ecosystems, driven by TII’s multidisciplinary research.

• Robotics programs span aerial, swarm, marine, and embodied AI, including humanoids and quadrupeds that are being tested and deployed.

• Recognising the strategic importance for national security, TII is also developing the UAE’s first sovereign quantum computer, algorithms and sensors.

• With over 1,000 researchers from more than 85 nationalities and strong local training programs, talent development is a key pillar.

Analyst Takeaways

• The world's leading AI cities are investing in Sovereign AI infrastructure to become technologically self-sufficient. These plans are moving beyond data centers and LLMs to also include areas like quantum computing and robotics.

• Moving innovations out of the lab is just as important as achieving them. R&D centers need a healthy ecosystem around them to ensure new breakthroughs result in benefits for the industry.

• Abu Dhabi is a world leader in both creating and disseminating AI research, both within the country and abroad.