Dubai, United Arab Emirates – H.H. Sheikh Rashid Bin Ahmed Al Maktoum has announced a partnership with Europe’s leading artificial intelligence (AI) venture studio and ecosystem Merantix to conceptualize AI City, a proposed free zone in Dubai where impactful AI solutions will be pioneered, implemented and scaled.

AI City will be a global AI hub, powered by smart city infrastructure that connects AI research institutions and talent with leading homegrown and global startups, corporations and investors. The project will work closely with universities to attract, train and upskill talent. By building a free zone, a regulatory sandbox environment will be created that will host world-leading computing infrastructure (HPC Clusters) and data centers, which will allow for rapid stress testing of wide-scale revolutionary and safety-critical AI concepts. It will host innovation labs, research institutes and co-working communities for all stakeholders to connect and collaborate and will be open to the public to raise awareness and show the positive impact of AI.

Merantix is Europe's leading AI venture studio and ecosystem, incubating and investing in AI-first companies, building solutions and conducting leading AI research through their solutions provider ‘Merantix Momentum’, as well as having built Europe's largest physical AI community hub, the Merantix AI Campus Berlin. Co-founder Dr. Rasmus Rothe is also a founding board member of the German AI association and has been part of devising and implementing the national AI strategy through an on-going cooperation with regulators in Germany and on a European level regarding the EU Artificial Intelligence Act. By bringing all relevant stakeholders together, Merantix is the best partner for this visionary project. AI City will also strengthen the connection and collaboration on AI between the UAE, Germany and Europe.

H.H. Sheikh Rashid Bin Ahmed Al Maktoum: “AI City will not only be the catalyst for great new products and solutions for global issues built here in Dubai, but it will also be a great place to bring AI closer to our society. With AI City we want to make this technology more accessible, grow the public understanding of Artificial Intelligence, and get more people involved.”

AI City will be a key building block and enabler for the UAE Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2031. By replicating the proven model of Dubai’s free zones, this project will accelerate Dubai’s trajectory to become a global leader in AI, and strengthen Dubai as a leading hub for attracting top talent and global investment. AI City will be a crucial lever to stress-test impact-driven AI initiatives and accelerate positive and ethical AI adoption across industries in the UAE and globally, at a time where governments around the world are working on regulatory frameworks to drive AI adoption.

Dr. Rasmus Rothe: “With AI City, we can build a strong bridge from Germany and Europe to the UAE. We need more collaboration to truly drive AI adoption, because only if we get all stakeholders to work together we can bridge the gap between research and practice. I am looking forward to building a global AI lighthouse in Dubai.”

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About Merantix

Merantix (https://www.merantix.com) is the world's first venture studio for artificial intelligence. Building AI startups across industries from scratch in collaboration with partners such as the technology investor SoftBank, Merantix pioneers the transfer of AI research into real-world applications and has built an ecosystem of AI community hubs (Merantix AI Campus Berlin) and AI research and development (Merantix Momentum). Lead investors of Merantix are SoftBank, Trusted Insight, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and various European family offices. Merantix was founded by Adrian Locher (CEO), a Swiss serial entrepreneur and investor, and Dr. Rasmus Rothe (CTO), an internationally renowned AI and computer vision expert from Germany, with a master degree from Oxford and Princeton and a PhD in artificial intelligence from ETH Zurich, who also founded the German AI Association.

About RAM Investment

Chaired by H.H. Sheikh Rashid Bin Ahmed Al Maktoum, RAM Investment was established in 2022 as a platform for companies in the Central Eastern European (CEE) to invest in projects connected to the national program 'Operation 300 Billion'. His Highness is working alongside a newly established consortium comprising of three law firms led by Boros Árpád András, a leading international corporate law firm specializing in the CEE region's energy, financial and investment sectors to screen investors for the region.

For RAM Investment media inquiries:
Hannah McCabe
Partner, CoCo Communications Consultants
E: hannah@coco-comms.me 
Partner, CoCo Communications Consultants
E: caroline@coco-comms.me