Dubai | The robots that roam the site of the World Expo in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, portend a new era in the Gulf where futuristic cities, based on artificial intelligence, are emerging.
Connected to the 5G network, the pharaonic site of Expo 2020, which is twice the size of Monaco, is in itself a “city of the future” and will remain a platform for the development of new technologies, told AFP the person in charge of the event before it opens in October.
Robots welcome visitors there and can register their catering orders.
At a cost of $ 7 billion, this project is not the only one in the rich Gulf region, where petro-dollars are now being invested in the post-oil future of the area.
Neighboring Saudi Arabia has invested some 500 billion dollars (around 437 billion euros) in its mega-project NEOM, a futuristic mega-city under development on the Red Sea and is testing flying taxis.
In the wealthy oil kingdom, artificial intelligence is at the heart of other projects, such as a new seaside resort under construction on the Red Sea, with cutting-edge technologies to monitor environmental impacts and visitor movements.
According to analysts, the Gulf monarchies are ready to bet big on artificial intelligence, aware of their dependence on industries linked to fossil fuels.
“You have leaders who anticipate, who have a taste for risk and see the need for transformation,” Kaveh Vessali of the consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Middle East told AFP.
Automated transport
With courses on artificial intelligence from elementary school in Bahrain, a drone delivery project in the Emirates or even Dubai’s goal of achieving a 25% share of automated transport by 2030, the countries of the Gulf are demonstrating their appetite for new technologies.
Another sign of this commitment, the Emirates appointed in 2017 their Prime Minister of State dedicated to artificial intelligence, Omar Ben Sultan al-Olama.
According to a PwC report, the Middle East region will represent by 2030 only 2% of the global economy linked to artificial intelligence, valued at $ 15.7 billion (around 13.7 billion euros ).
But for several analysts, the Gulf monarchies (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) are betting on the long term and could one day overtake the main players.
According to PwC, the annual growth of the artificial intelligence market in the Gulf countries – the UAE and Saudi Arabia in the lead – is between 20 and 34%. This activity could, according to the same source, represent for these two countries 10% of their GDP by 2030.
“Governments (of the Gulf) have the luxury of being more strategic,” said Vessali, referring to plans for 20 or 50 years.
“This does not exist on the one hand in the private sector and on the other hand in the West,” he adds.
Most Gulf companies are indeed either 100% or at least partly government-owned, and therefore are under less pressure to generate short-term profits, he adds.
“Simplified” process
The idea “to be seen as being behind in terms of new technologies is considered in the region as a greater risk than any other”, indicates to AFP Cesar Lopez, director of Datumcon, a company which develops in particular technologies to scan and identify damaged containers at the Jebel Ali port in Dubai, one of the busiest in the world.
“Taking the risk of doing what others do not have made it possible to attract (companies) and build a market,” he said, also welcoming a “simplified” decision-making process in the Emirates.
But the lack of reliability and the difficulty of accessing data, at the heart of the development of systems linked to artificial intelligence, remains an obstacle.
“It will take a few years” before we have a successful system in the region, said Stephan Rawson, partner in the consultancy firm Oliver Wyman.
A later start in data collection, however, could prove to be an advantage with more streamlined term systems, says Rawson.
And, according to him, this development will be easier than in the West where private companies are mobilized only “if there is a benefit to the key for each of them”, he believes.