UAE appoints first-ever Minister for Artificial Intelligence

They established a post of the Minister of Happiness last year

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) appears to be leading new trends in government reshuffles, now having introduced its first Minister for Artificial Intelligence.

After establishing a post of the Minister of Happiness last year, the Gulf Kingdom has taken another unconventional step.



The introduction of the new hi-tech position was announced by Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum on Thursday.

نعلن اليوم عن تعيين وزير دولة للذكاء الاصطناعي .. الموجة العالمية القادمة هي الذكاء الاصطناعي .. ونريد أن نكون الدولة الأكثر استعدادا لها

— HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) October 19, 2017

The Tweet roughly translates as "We announce the appointment of a minister for artificial intelligence. The next global wave is artificial intelligence and we want the UAE to be more prepared for it."

27-year-old Omar Sultan Al-Ulama, who was previously the Deputy Director of the Future Department since 2014, will take charge of the ministry.  He also held a position in the Executive Committee of the World Government Summit (WGS) designed to share government-building experiences and innovations among different nations.

Back in May, The world’s first robot policeman officially joined Dubai’s police force. The autonomous Robocop entered the line of duty by greeting guests and patrolling the halls at the three-day Gulf Information Security Expo and Conference.

Last week, the police of United Arab Emirates (UAE) capital city Abu Dhabi announced that they will soon use ‘smart glasses’ or augmented virtual reality glasses to catch criminals.

The smart glasses has a micro-camera that will use artificial intelligence to automatically scan hundreds of faces in a crowd and will send a notification to authorities when it comes to a wanted person.



This announcement comes just a few days after the UAE announced their UAE 2031 AI strategy, which aims to make the government more efficient and streamlined by relying on AI technologies.