nisar ahmed 
May 26, 2025, Abu Dhabi — As competition intensifies throughout the Gulf, the United Arab Emirates has accelerated its goal to become a dominant force in the global AI landscape by revealing a ground-breaking Arabic-language artificial intelligence (AI) model.
The new model, dubbed Falcon Arabic, was developed by Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC). It is designed to reflect the linguistic depth and diversity of the Arab world, built on what ATRC describes as a high-quality native Arabic dataset rather than translated sources. Despite its compact size, Falcon Arabic reportedly delivers performance on par with models up to ten times larger.
“AI leadership today isn’t about sheer scale—it’s about creating tools that are powerful, practical, and widely accessible,” said Faisal Al Bannai, Secretary General of ATRC.
Positioning the UAE as a global AI powerhouse is the goal of its strategic investment in AI, which is supported by billions of dollars and close ties with Washington. The UAE will now have access to state-of-the-art U.S.-made AI semiconductors, marking a major advancement in the country’s technological capabilities, thanks to a historic AI agreement announced by U.S. President Donald Trump during a visit to the region last week.
In addition to Falcon Arabic, ATRC also introduced Falcon H1, a high-performance model that, according to the Council, outperforms offerings from major tech firms such as Meta and Alibaba. Falcon H1 is engineered to reduce the computational demands and technical expertise typically required to operate advanced AI systems.
AI innovation was a prominent theme not only in the UAE but also during Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, where the kingdom is pushing its own vision of becoming a global AI hub. Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia launched a new state-owned company focused on developing AI technologies and infrastructure. The initiative includes plans to create one of the world’s most powerful multimodal Arabic large language models.
A larger attempt to assert digital sovereignty while influencing the direction of AI innovation in the Arab world is highlighted by the rise of regionally specific models like Falcon Arabic as the Gulf countries step up their AI aspirations.
