What Nigeria can learn from Dubai’s ambitious drive to build Global AI companies

Dubai’s aggressive push to become a global hub for artificial intelligence (AI) is offering a powerful blueprint for emerging markets like Nigeria.

Through heavy investment in infrastructure, targeted regulation, global partnerships, and talent attraction, the emirate is rapidly building an ecosystem designed to create, scale, and retain AI companies at world-class levels.

Nigeria can accelerate its AI growth by adopting Dubai’s model of treating AI as critical national infrastructure, fostering public-private partnerships for data centers, and embedding AI training across all educational levels.

Dubai’s rise as an AI hub demonstrates that policy clarity, infrastructure investment, regulatory support, and global partnerships can rapidly transform a region into a magnet for innovation.

If Nigeria adopts similar principles, it could unlock a new generation of globally competitive AI startups, create high-value jobs, and position itself as Africa’s leading AI economy.

Dubai is aggressively positioning itself as a premier global AI hub by 2031, targeting a 14 percent GDP contribution from AI, driven by the UAE National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence 2031 and supported by multi-billion-dollar funding, specialised free zones (DIFC, Dubai Internet City), and top-tier talent attraction via Golden Visas. The city hosts over 800 AI firms.

At the centre of Dubai’s strategy is the Dubai AI & Web 3.0 Campus, located within the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). The campus is being developed to attract over 500 AI and Web3 companies by 2028, supported by more than $300 million in collective investment, and expected to generate over 3,000 jobs.

The initiative is part of a wider economic agenda to position Dubai as a global technology and innovation hub, according to a Khaleej Times report titled ‘Dubai’s AI & Web 3.0 Campus aims to attract over 500 companies by 2028.’

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Dubai is also building deep physical infrastructure to support AI development. In January 2026, Reuters reported that the DIFC is undergoing a $27 billion expansion, which includes a dedicated AI campus, integrated into a next-generation financial and innovation district.

This move reflects Dubai’s understanding that AI leadership depends not only on policy and talent, but also on large-scale physical and digital infrastructure.

Long-term policy vision

Dubai’s AI strategy is deeply tied to its long-term economic agenda, which aims to diversify the economy beyond oil and establish the city as a technology capital.

Artificial Intelligence is treated as core economic infrastructure, and for Nigeria, this means embedding AI development into long-term national planning by linking it to industrial policy, education reform, job creation, and export growth, rather than isolated tech initiatives.

Regulation as an enabler and not a barrier for innovators

Dubai has positioned regulation as a competitive advantage, as its fintech and AI-friendly licensing frameworks, cost-effective permits, and fast-track startup processes are explicitly designed to reduce friction for innovators.

The DIFC Innovation Hub offers sector-specific regulation, startup accelerators, and access to venture capital, making it easier for companies to move from idea to scale, Khaleej Times reported.

Nigeria can learn from this by simplifying business registration, improving regulatory clarity for AI, fintech, and data-driven companies, and creating safe regulatory sandboxes that encourage experimentation.

Infrastructure first model

Dubai’s model shows that AI ecosystems cannot thrive without high-quality digital and physical infrastructure.

From data centres, cloud platforms, to research labs and innovation campuses, the emirate is deliberately building environments where startups and global firms can easily deploy compute-intensive AI systems.

Nigerian startups remain heavily dependent on foreign infrastructure, which raises costs and limits scalability. This poses an urgent need to invest more aggressively in reliable electricity and broadband infrastructure, local data centres, cloud capacity, dedicated technology parks, and AI hubs.

Government as lead customer

Dubai’s government actively deploys Artificial Intelligence across public services, from transportation, healthcare, and urban planning.

This approach turns the public sector into a major customer for AI startups, giving early-stage companies revenue, credibility, and real-world testing environments. By contrast, Nigeria’s public sector remains a largely untapped market for local AI startups.

Talent strategy and Global partnerships

Dubai aggressively attracts global talent and partners with technology giants such as Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle, and Amazon Web Services, embedding international expertise into its ecosystem.

This allows startups to gain access to advanced tools, mentorship, and global markets, while Nigeria, with its deep pool of engineering talent, can combine local skills development with targeted international partnerships, enabling Nigerian founders to compete at a global standard.

Folake Balogun is a tech journalist covering Africa’s fast-growing digital economy with a strong focus on incisive analysis of startup trends, venture capital, and fintech innovation, while also exploring emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and the future of connectivity by highlighting their economic and social impact.

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