UAE creates a Federal Authority for AI and Data

Published: 2026-06-15T09:07:25.000Z

The UAE has made another move designed to keep it at the front of the global race to govern with AI rather than just adopt it. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid has approved the establishment of the Federal Authority for Artificial Intelligence and Data, a new body that will serve as a single national umbrella reporting to the cabinet.

The UAE has made another move designed to keep it at the front of the global race to govern with artificial intelligence rather than just adopt it. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, has approved the establishment of the Federal Authority for Artificial Intelligence and Data, a new body that will serve as a single national umbrella for managing data, AI and digital government across the country. The authority will report directly to the cabinet, and Omar Sultan Al Olama, the minister of state for artificial intelligence and digital economy, has been named to lead it. The announcement, made on Sunday, signals an unusually decisive bet on consolidation in a field where most governments are still trying to figure out which department even owns the topic. The structural significance is in what is being merged. The new authority pulls together three previously separate entities, namely the Office of Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications, the Digital Government Sector at the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority, and the UAE Data Office. Bringing all three under one roof is meant to end the kind of overlap and fragmentation that often slows down national technology programs, replacing scattered mandates with a unified chain of command. The choice to have the body answer directly to the cabinet places it at the heart of government rather than tucked inside a ministry. The substantive remit is broad and pointed. The authority is tasked with proposing national policies, legislation and strategies covering AI and data, leading the country's AI strategy, lifting the digital economy's share of GDP, and overseeing how government data is managed, shared and made available across federal entities. It will also run AI powered national data platforms designed to feed evidence into government decision making and to deliver more proactive and integrated digital services to citizens and residents. The language coming out of the announcement leans heavily on agentic AI, the kind of autonomous, decision making systems that go beyond chat assistants, with Sheikh Mohammed describing the ambition as a government that runs on data and agentic AI and that decides faster while continuously improving. There is also an international dimension. The authority is explicitly charged with strengthening cross border coordination, building partnerships abroad in AI and data, and supporting cybersecurity and government information security. That is a recognition that AI governance is increasingly a diplomatic and standard setting game, not just a domestic one. The regional read is impossible to miss. Across the Gulf, governments are racing to position themselves as AI leaders, with Saudi Arabia channeling sovereign money into HUMAIN and other ventures, Qatar deepening its bets through QIA, and the UAE building data centres, hosting global AI players and now centralising its own machinery. Establishing a federal authority is the unglamorous but critical step that turns ambition into something countries can actually execute on, and it sets a clearer template that neighbours will be studying closely.