One of the most crucial aspects of any city that is working to solidify its position as a hub for all things tech and start-up related is the ability to attract the right talent. And Dubai offers up a masterclass in this space.
Case in point: in 2023, when entrepreneur Raakin Iqbal was in the US, he found himself researching something called Artificial General Intelligence, (AGI) after noticing some drawbacks in AI programmes like ChatGPT.
“I was looking into newer levels of AI, which essentially we would call AGI, and even past that, a super intelligence, where the AI has added capabilities such as fully understanding human cultural nuances,” Iqbal told Business Recorder in an exclusive chat.
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Soon, he found himself with “a full set of research ready to go”. He happened to be in Dubai around this time, where he “floated the research around” and then continued on his travels in the region.
One day, “all of a sudden” he was contacted by the Dubai Future Foundation and Dubai Center of Artificial Intelligence. When they found out he was not in the country, they sent him a plane ticket and put him up in a hotel for a few months, presenting him with over 100 use cases related to government ministries to see where his research could be best applied.
“That was about two years ago. And fast forward, I’m now in Dubai with a frontier tech AI startup.”
Frontier tech refers to emerging technologies at the cutting edge of scientific breakthroughs and real-world implementation. The startup he founded is called Nucleus AI, which has since worked with Dubai Airports, Dubai Blockchain Centre and Dubai Land Department among other ministries, as well as having raised roughly a million dollars.
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Not only that, but it is backed by chipmaker NVIDIA and Amazon Web Services – “so whenever we need additional resources, let’s say data scientists or insights, we can reach out to them” Iqbal tells us.
So what does Nucleus AI do exactly?
In layman terms, it can “ give an AI brain“ to any organisation.
“That brain is simulated to how a human brain functions. So whether you are a government entity, a large scale organization, media or press, you dump your information in there, and the system will automatically learn everything about your industry based off of your data,” he explained.
This has a whole variety of uses for the company, such as acting as a customer service bot “with enough intelligence to replace up to tier one, tier two employees, to even a more complex use case where it can read geopolitical events around the world and apply it (to your organisation) in real time, becoming a strategy copilot.”
Meanwhile, the AI he is researching is “more enhanced, smarter and more closer to human level intelligence” than the commercially available AI products out there right now, he believes.
It should be able to “understand emotions, context, reasoning and the relationship between different things”.
The company has recently initiated a pilot program for ATOM (Augmented Transference Operational Matrix), an AI infrastructure framework designed to support governments in their digital transformation efforts. Currently, it is undergoing research and testing within various regulatory bodies in Dubai, aiming to centralize and streamline regulatory frameworks across the city’s governance landscape.
‘Innovation in government is a necessity’
When asked about his thoughts on the Dubai government’s initiative to get Iqbal to come to the emirate and its commitment to tech, he said that “the best way of putting it is what His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai, said – ‘innovation in government is a necessity if you want to advance’.”
According to Iqbal, these are not just words, but the Sheikh is truly committed to this mantra, and tries to become a first adopter of new tech, and in that way makes Dubai a model government.
Another big plus of being in Dubai is networking.
“The leverage that Dubai has that truthfully not many places in the world have, including the US, is access to global capital,” said Iqbal.
“People are always interacting with each other. And because the population is much smaller, if you network well, you tend to get to know everyone. That becomes a strong tool to get more contracts and more business.”
He also praised the business environment in Dubai.
“When you’re in Dubai, you wake up wanting to just run that dash. You’re always up to something here. You’re always working something through because that idea that’s itching in the back of your mind that you’re trying to prove,”
This sort of environment does exist in Silicon Valley, but Dubai has it at a “far more larger scale,” Iqbal noted.
In fact, Iqbal has plans for an upcoming investor roadshow the idea of which is to tell the world that the “unimaginable concepts” he is working on are “something that’s coming not from Silicon Valley, but from Dubai.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
