How businesses can capitalise on the UAE’s world-class tech infrastructure

As an entrepreneur, I fully understand how useful tools are in streamlining your business process and creating cost-saving efficiencies where possible. I’m also a great believer in technology. So, it’s perhaps no surprise that I love the UAE for its strong global stance on encouraging and attracting entrepreneurship and the fact that it is a world leader in many diverse technology sectors. 

The UAE has long been considered a leading hub for international trade and business in the region and has a mature, well-developed competitive market for the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry.

We hear a lot about building a knowledge economy – a wise move given the shift away from reliance on oil and gas revenues – while a plethora of federal government-led initiatives are designed to build a competitive knowledge economy and shore up our open, efficient, and streamlined business environment. 

Setting up a new business in hours involves technology, from Smart Government to rapid ID checking. 

We have free trade zones specialising in all different types of technology, not least of which is Dubai Internet City, which was launched way back in 1999, and Dubai Silicon Oasis, inaugurated in 2005. Both aim to attract bleeding-edge technology companies and act as industry clusters for new technology and innovative companies.

Now, we have the Expo City Dubai concept – already the largest city in the world to be fully covered by a 5G-enabled network – which offers a wide array of business benefits, mostly aimed at start-ups in emerging sectors such as AI, VR, big data, and nanotechnology. It’s exciting to hear that global technology giant Siemens is choosing the former Expo site as its new home, especially after its MindSphere Smart City technology was used to control HVAC, fire safety systems, and electricity usage across the Expo 2020 site. 

On launch in 2007, the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority’s UAE ICT Fund was the first fund of its kind in the Arab world. It was launched to encourage innovative research and development projects in the ICT sector and help educate Emirati tech students studying overseas.

Fast forward to September 2022, and the latest announcement from our visionary government is an incredible Dubai Robotics and Automation Program, led by the Dubai Future Foundation.

The program aims to introduce 200,000 robots to raise levels of efficiency and productivity in the service, industrial, and logistics sectors and boost the contribution of the robotics and automation sector to 9 per cent of the emirate’s gross domestic product within the next decade.

With a futuristic backdrop and a sense that the UAE is a place where anything innovative can find its place (need I mention the Hyperloop link between Dubai and Abu Dhabi here?) and one of the world’s largest 5G networks, you might ask yourself, why wouldn’t I take advantage of such an environment?

Why not capitalise on a country wholly focused on utilising technology to better society, government, business, and healthcare, to name a few?

Technology today is the backbone of a business. From pan-global communications to monitoring water levels in indoor vertical gardens, we are relying more and more on innovation to help us achieve our business goals. 

What we don’t need is an environment where connectivity is slow, funding is not available, or innovation is not welcomed, respected and rewarded. Right here, right now, it feels to me like the UAE is one of the best places in the world to be if you are an innovative entrepreneur. There are opportunities aplenty; constant innovation; fast-moving laws to facilitate rapid economic growth; and a climate buzzing with potential, possibility, and excitement. 

Come here and let your tech business thrive.