How Abu Dhabi is building the foundations of an AI economy

Abu Dhabi is positioning itself to build an AI economy by backing domestic technology firms that develop systems for cities, infrastructure and industry. Abu Dhabi-based Origen, which develops AI-native spatial intelligence, secured a $50 million strategic investment from BlueFive Capital in February to accelerate product development and deployment, while wider state plans include a Dh13 billion commitment to a Government Digital Strategy for 2025–2027 and the planned 5‑gigawatt UAE‑US AI Campus that would host projects such as Stargate UAE.

"We are living through one of those rare technological shifts that goes far beyond a single industry," said Frank Dai, Origen's founder and chief executive. "AI will change how almost every sector operates. When a transformation happens at that scale, it creates the conditions for a new generation of important companies to emerge."

Context and build-out

The emirate's economic backdrop is changing: Abu Dhabi's non‑oil economy grew 7.6 per cent year‑on‑year in the third quarter of 2025 and now accounts for roughly 54 per cent of GDP. At the federal level, the UAE aims to raise the digital economy's contribution to GDP from 9.7 per cent in 2022 to 19.4 per cent within a decade. Large pools of capital and ambition are arriving alongside infrastructure and policy moves designed to support those goals — for example, MGX, an Abu Dhabi‑backed investment group, closed a $49 billion fund this year targeting semiconductors, AI infrastructure and platforms.

Origen is one of the local companies translating that ambition into operational systems. Its SpatialWare platform combines BIM and CAD models, point clouds, sensor feeds and operational data into a continuously updated representation of the physical world. The platform uses spatial reasoning, agentic AI and physics‑based models to understand relationships between assets, simulate conditions and support predictive decisions — aiming to make AI part of operational infrastructure rather than a standalone software tool.

A major test of that approach is Nabd, an AI‑powered digital governance framework being developed with the Abu Dhabi Department of Municipalities and Transport. Origen serves as system architect for Nabd, which brings city and operational information into a live three‑dimensional representation of Abu Dhabi. The project integrates more than 70 data sources across more than 15 connected systems and covers buildings, roads, utilities, underground infrastructure and other urban assets.

• Origen's $50 million strategic investment came from BlueFive Capital in February.
• MGX closed a $49 billion fund targeting semiconductors and AI infrastructure.
• Government committed Dh13 billion to a digital strategy for 2025–2027.
• Planned 5‑GW UAE‑US AI Campus (including Stargate UAE) aims to boost compute capacity.

Outlook

Origen says its appointment to architect Nabd followed a competitive process involving international technology groups and strong local players, and that its proposal prevailed largely on technical merit. The company and Abu Dhabi now face the longer test of international competitiveness: building deep technical expertise, intellectual property and the ability to scale technology beyond the home market. For Abu Dhabi, the immediate achievement is visible — financing, computation and government demand — but the longer task is producing companies whose technology can compete globally. Origen's progress will be watched as an early indicator of whether that next stage is achievable.