Gates Foundation praises UAE's AI approach and agricultural tech ambition

The Gates Foundation has pledged at least $1 billion over the next two years to expand global access to artificial intelligence and its applications in health, education and agriculture, and praised the United Arab Emirates for its approach to AI and its commitment to agricultural innovation. During a push to reduce technological and language barriers, the foundation and the UAE each committed $100 million to the Aim for Scale initiative announced at Cop28 to spur agricultural innovation and reduce hunger.

"We did a joint announcement with the UAE during Cop28 climate conference, called Aim for Scale, where we each put in $100 million," said Mark Suzman, chief executive of the Gates Foundation.

The foundation released a 2026 report that outlines priorities to ensure AI benefits farmers, doctors, teachers and students worldwide rather than deepen existing inequalities. Suzman highlighted work by the UAE’s Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) and other regional institutions, noting MBZUAI's studies of AI's potential to prevent disease and improve weather forecasting as examples of applied research intended to benefit society.

Report findings and language equity

• The report warns that AI language models continue to underperform in low-resource languages — including Amharic, Arabic and Yoruba — risking a widening technology gap for developing nations.
• It calls for targeted investment to "make AI work in every language people speak," so tools and software are tailored to local needs, dialects and slang, especially in regions with high linguistic diversity.
• Despite progress, multilingual models remain skewed toward English, and a 2025 study from MBZUAI found lower model performance in non-English languages on questions about science and technology.

Suzman reiterated the importance of philanthropic and corporate partnerships to build language resources and public goods for AI. "The great thing about languages is that this doesn't need to be done multiple times. Once it's done, it's done, and a public good has been achieved for the AI field and the world," he said, adding that the Gates Foundation may have further announcements on this work in the weeks ahead.

The UAE's Technology Innovation Institute was cited for introducing Falcon Arabic in 2025, described at the time as being "fluent in Arabic," a development the report noted as significant given that Arabic is spoken by about 400 million people worldwide. The foundation stresses that achieving effective AI for health in Africa — a continent with more than 2,000 languages — requires systems that understand local speech patterns and terminology.

Policy stance and practical priorities

• Suzman said debates over open-source versus closed AI models are less relevant for many developing countries than practical questions about outcomes and access.
• Key considerations include whether tools use educational data sets safely, and whether people can access AI at the lowest possible cost.
• The foundation's investments aim to help doctors, farmers and teachers evaluate which AI technologies will work best in their settings.

Bill Gates, in a lengthy essay preceding the report, struck a cautious tone about unregulated AI, acknowledging both excitement and worry about its societal impacts. The foundation's strategy frames its $1 billion commitment and the UAE partnership as efforts to steer AI toward narrowing rather than widening global inequities in health, education and food security.