Opinion feature by Dr. Winnie Tang, Honorary Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Hong Kong:

Acquiring foreign talent is proved to be a shortcut to promote social and economic development of a place. The United States being well known as the melting pot of various nationalities is a typical example in this respect.

The revolutionary potential of 5G is not yet fully understood by the public. While the switch from 3G to 4G was mostly a matter of increased speed, the rise of 5G will unlock the potential of a flood of new technologies. From self-driving cars to virtual reality, from Internet of Things to drones, 5G has the power to propel the Middle East forward on its path to digitalization.

AI innovation will be central to the achievement of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and will help solving humanity's grand challenges by capitalizing on the unprecedented quantities of data now being generated on sentiment behavior, human health, commerce, communications, migration and more.

Abu Dhabi announced the establishment of the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), the first graduate level, research-based AI University in the world. MBZUAI will enable graduate students, businesses, and governments to advance artificial intelligence. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to boost economic growth in the United Arab Emirates by 1.6 percentage points and add US$182 billion to the national economy by 2035, according to a recent report by Accenture (NYSE: ACN).

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) today announced the launch of AIQ, its Artificial Intelligence (AI) joint venture (JV) company with Group 42 (G42), an Abu Dhabi-based AI and cloud computing company.

Dubai Future Labs (DFL), an advanced applied research and development (R&D) lab established by Dubai Future Foundation (DFF), is providing cutting-edge robotics and artificial intelligence know-how to the government, private sector and community.

Artificial intelligence, the ubiquitous buzzword that keeps seeping into our everyday conversations and across several industries, carries with it the promise for a better life. It brings about a promise for bettering our lives as individuals, citizens, customers, students and most interestingly of all, as patients.

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) has substantially improved the banking sector’s commercial performance and customer satisfaction while reducing operational processing times by 30%, according to a recent study.

Rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions will increase the UAE's GDP by USD 96 billion by 2030, enabling organizations to better meet and predict customer and citizen trends and drive digital business innovation.

Michigan’s law enforcement officers have leveraged artificial intelligence (AI) facial recognition technology to bust scam operations in Pennsylvania, successfully recovering USD 20,000 in fraudulent bank withdrawals.

On Wednesday, at AI Everything in Dubai, a panel discussion took place which consisted of people from a variety of different sectors and they spoke about how AI could improve businesses.

In Q3 of 2021, Sodexo Middle East will officially launch its state-of-the-art food waste prevention program called WasteWatch. Powered by Leanpath, WWxLP is driven by AI algorithms that provide automated food waste data collections. 

Chinese e-commerce colossus Alibaba has taken its first venture into developing artificial intelligence home devices by launching its voice assistant speaker, which has drawn comparisons to Amazon's 'Echo'.

Amazon and Microsoft announced that Alexa, Amazon’s AI personal assistant, will soon be able to communicate with Cortana, the personal assistant for Windows 10, and vice versa. Users of Amazon’s Alexa-controlled Echo speaker will be able to turn on their device and say, "Alexa, open Cortana," or turn to their Windows 10 device and say, "Cortana, open Alexa."

Apple CEO Tim Cook has confirmed that the technology colossus is now focusing on the development of autonomous systems as they join the global race to develop the technology for driverless cars. In an interview with Bloomberg, Cook described the challenge of building autonomous vehicles as 'the mother of all' artificial intelligence projects.

Apple's efforts to produce self-driving cars have failed to pick up steam owing to a lack of team coordination and the blurring of leadership goals, even as rival companies steadily enter the autonomous car market.

Australian telecommunications incumbent Telstra has joined forces with the New South Wales government and a number of technology partners to launch the first driverless vehicle in the state. The consortium has begun trials on the autonomous car, which covers vehicle-to-pedestrian technology. It is expected that the trial will run over a two-year period at Sydney Olympic Park.

A security organisation will present futuristic artificial intelligence camera and sensor technology that sees, smells and listens for potential problems, at the Future Cities Show in Dubai in a push to make Dubai the world's safest smart city.

The first edition of “Building the SMART Future” conference was organized on December 7^th, 2017 at the Meydan Hotel, Dubai, UAE. The conference highlighted the latest smart cities trends and technologies and tackled the challenges that governments and telcos are facing in their journey to make their cities smarter.

Panels discussed artificial intelligence and its impact on transportation, employment and health sectors in addition to IoT being a driver of smart cities around the world. 

In addition, the conference hosted the ITU CXO meeting. ITU hosted the first CXO meeting in October 2016 in Tunisia. The conclusion of the first CXO meeting went on to feed discussions in ITU on the promotion of OTT (over-the-top) innovation, possible regulatory approaches to OTT, and the value of partnerships between OTT players and network operators 

• Building the SMART Future 2017