Two experts from the UAE believe that artificial intelligence has now become a fundamental element in the way countries build relationships.
Diplomacy has in the past been concerned with oil, trade, and defense; according to a recent article in The National, there is now a fourth element involved: algorithms.
The authors refer to this as “algo-diplomacy” and apply it to the AI partnership between Abu Dhabi and Silicon Valley. Since this is an opinion piece, the following represents their argument and not something that has been established as fact.
What “Algo-Diplomacy” Means
The concept is simple: “Algo” stands for “algorithm,” and “diplomacy” refers to the actions that countries take in order to build relationships. Together, the two terms cover the way nations establish ties around AI, including matters such as computing power and data, research, and technical talent.
The authors argue that previous alliances have been based on trade, energy, and defense, and that AI has now introduced a new dimension. In their opinion, the UAE-US partnership in the field of AI is an appropriate example.
Who Wrote It, and Why It Matters
The article is authored by Ahmed Talib Al Shamsi, who is the secretary general of the Emirates Foundation, and by Dr. Yousef Al Hammadi from the Abu Dhabi Early Childhood Authority.
The two of them are associated with the National Experts Programme, which the article supports. This does not imply that the arguments are incorrect, but it does show that the piece is intended to promote the program. Bear this in mind when you read about the UAE-US AI partnership.
The Numbers Behind the Idea
The authors point to several developments, which they report without independent checks:
The UAE and the United States have established a partnership aimed at investing in AI, comprising a $1.4 trillion investment framework by the UAE over ten years, focusing on AI infrastructure, semiconductors, energy, and manufacturing.
The infrastructure for the UAE-US partnership in the field of artificial intelligence involves a plan to establish an AI Campus in Abu Dhabi, which includes five gigawatts of power capacity for data centers, which they state would be one of the largest AI infrastructure projects outside the United States.
Last year the MBZUAI Institute of Foundation Models opened a lab in Silicon Valley as part of its network, which extends to Abu Dhabi, Paris, and Silicon Valley.
People Over Servers
The key point is that while money and infrastructure provide AI with scale, the authors argue that it is people, expertise, and reliable institutions that convert that scale into sustainable national capability.
As they stress, human decisions are just as important as the technology itself in determining what is tested, what is deployed, and which ideas receive funding. They also state that trust relies on the various partners agreeing on how sensitive technology is protected, how data is used, and who is responsible. According to them, the most enduring form of the UAE-US AI partnership will be “carried by people.”
A Program Built Around That Idea
To support this, the authors refer to an AI track within the National Experts Programme, in which fifteen AI experts from the UAE coming from the government, industry, and academia will meet up with teams at Apple, Scale AI, OpenAI, Nvidia, and the MBZUAI Institute of Foundation Models.
The topics covered will be how companies decide when a model is ready to be released, how to protect privacy on a large scale, and how investment gets to early-stage researchers. This aspect of the UAE-US AI partnership is practical and yet rarely appears in the headlines.
The Home Front
The article also examines internal matters, referring to a Microsoft report that states that 73.3% of the UAE’s working-age population used generative AI, the highest proportion among the countries examined.
The authors also note a government aim to transfer 50% of the federal sectors, services, and operations to agentic AI, along with training for 80,000 federal employees. These are the claims they make, so the figures relating to the UAE-US AI partnership should be treated as reported rather than verified.
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