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New Falcon 2 LLMs released; First Arabic LLM evaluation index
Middle East AI News weekly digest...

Carrington Malin
May 16, 2024

Good morning!

Welcome to this week’s Middle East AI News!

Lots of news to hare this morning including some big LLM news! Technology Innovation Institute released the first two models in its Falcon 2 series this week; Core42 released an iOS Jais Arabic chat app; ClusterLabs releases a new 101 billion-word curated Arabic dataset; meanwhile, the first Open Arabic LLM Leaderboard went live on the Hugging Face community site!

Scroll down for more news!

I’m hosting a great Middle East AI News LIVE - THURSDAY DEEP DIVE on LinkedIn later today at 12 noon KSA | 1pm UAE time | 9am GMT!

I’ll be talking to Professor Merouane Debbah, founding director of the 6G Centre at Khalifa University of Science and Technology, about AI’s role in future 6G networks the UAE’s ascension as a 6G R&D hub!

Click here to attend today’s THURSDAY DEEP DIVE!

As always, thanks for reading!

/Carrington


LLMs
TII debuts multimodal Falcon 2 Series

#UAE #LLMs - Technology Innovation Institute (TII) has announced the second generation of its open-source LLM, Falcon, with the release of Falcon 2. TII has announced two new Falcon 2 versions: Falcon 2 11B, a more efficient and less resource-hungry LLM; and Falcon 2 11B VLM, which is the first multimodal LLM with new vision-to-language model capabilities. (Middle East AI News)

New Hugging Face Open Arabic LLM Leaderboard
#Arabic #evaluation- Hugging Face, the data science platform and open-source AI community, has released the Open Arabic LLM Leaderboard (OALL). The new leaderboard provides a platform specifically for evaluating and comparing the performance of Arabic LLMs. (Middle East AI News)

Core42 releases Jais Chat for iOS
#UAE #AIchat - G42 subsidiary Core42 has released Jais Chat a new iOS mobile app for its large language model Jais. The personal assistant is based on the Jais 30 billion parameter Arabic large language model, which was released last November. Jace Chat understands multiple Arabic dialects and cultural nuances. (Zawya)

ClusterLab releases 101 billion word Arabic dataset
#UAE #trainingdata - Dubai-based AI startup ClusterLab has released an open-source 101 billion word Arabic language dataset - the largest open-source resource to be announced for the development of Arabic LLMs. (Hugging Face)

Investment
Qatar announces $2.47 billion AI economic package
#Qatar #investment - Qatar's Prime Minister has announced a QR 9 billion ($2.47b) economic investment package for investment in innovation, artificial intelligence and other technologies. Speaking at the fourth edition of Qatar Economic Forum, he also launched the Arab Artificial Intelligence Project, to focus on creating and curating high-quality Arabic language data for training AI models. (Zawya)

Venture Capital
QIA invests in semiconductor fund
#Qatar #semiconductor - Qatar's sovereign-wealth fund plans to make an anchor investment in the semiconductor fund of French private equity firm Ardian. The fund will invest in the semiconductor industry across Europe. Qatar Investment Authority is investing in semiconductor in recognition of its impact across key sectors such as AI, mobility and consumer technologies. (Bloomberg)

$100 million AI fund registered in Abu Dhabi
#UAE #funding - Swiss Investor Consortium - BRICS Investment Fund - managing 13.8 billion Swiss francs in assets, has established a new AI-dedicated investment fund in Abu Dhabi. With an initial capital commitment of 100 million dollars, the fund aims to invest in growth companies and initiatives in AI. (Edge Middle East)

Metaverse
Saudi launches immersive tech initiative
#Saudi #XR - Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, and NEOM’s cognitive technology company TONOMUS, have announced the immersive digital environments and assets initiative, or Idea. The initiative will create a unified strategic plan and activation roadmap across public- and private-sector partners to jumpstart immersive tech development. (SPA)

R&D
Digital portal launched for UAE R&D
#UAE #R&D - Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), has launched a The UAE Research Map, a digital portal for research and development. The platform provides a central resource for government agencies, higher education institutes, research labs, and industry partners. (Abu Dhabi Media Office)

Oracle to expand R&D in Morocco
#Morocco #R&D - Oracle will expand its R&D capabilities in Morocco, by growing its local workforce to 1,000 technology professionals. The expansion follows the opening of US enterprise software giant’s Morocco Development Center facility in Casablanca, which will develop AI, big data, cloud computing and cybersecurity solutions. (Oracle)

Advanced Mobility
e& signs 5G agreement with MLG
#UAE #advancedmobility - e& UAE and the advanced mobility arm of MLG (Multi Level Group) have signed a strategic partnership to integrate MLG's advanced mobility solutions with the telco's 5G services. The two companies recently conducted several live demos of fully autonomous electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and drones powered entirely by e& UAE’s 5G network. (Zawya)

Digital Transformation
UAE State of Digital Transformation report released
#UAE #digitalgovernment - The second edition of the State of Digital Transformation report covering 12 government sectors was released at the UAE Digital Readiness Retreat this week. According to the report, the digital transformation of government services has reached 99% and the sector has registered a total of 36.4 million digital transactions. (Emirates News Agency)

Education
NYU Abu Dhabi receives grant to advance AI initiatives
#UAE #AI - NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) has received a grant from famed investor and philanthropist Alan Howard. The donation will be used to establish the Alan Howard Distinguished Professorship in AI, and the Alan Howard Global PhD Fellowship in AI, with the aim of supporting the development of local talent and preparing them for jobs of the future. (Emirates News Agency)

Data Centres
Ezditek and Gcore sign MoU to deliver GPU capacity
#Saudi #datacentres - Saudi data centre company Ezditek, has signed an MoU with Luxembourg headquartered Gcore, to boost AI/GPU infrastructure in the Kingdom. The partnership will deliver AI/GPU capacity within five years, spread across  centres located in Riyadh (3), Jeddah (3), and Dammam (3). (TelecomTalk)

IT Spending
Saudi ICT spending surges 20% in 2023 to reach $11.6 billion
#Saudi #IT - Saudi Arabia witnessed a 20% year-on-year increase in government spending on ICT in 2023, reaching SR 41.87 billion ($11.16 billion), according to a government spokesperson quoting new data. (Arab News)

Pharma
First fully AI-generated drug to clinical trials
#UAE #pharma - Abu Dbabi-based Insilico Medicine is advancing the world’s first fully AI-generated drug to clinical trials. Insilico’s new drug, which will help treat a deadly lung disease called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, is the first to be fully generated by AI. (Zawya)

AI Policy
QCB to introduce AI guidelines
#Qatar #guidelines - Qatar Central Bank (QCB) plans to issue its first guidelines on how to adapt AI in financial institutions in the country in a few weeks, and has already sent draft guidelines to financial institutions for consultation. Q.C.B aims to create a framework that governs data, AI and risk modelling. (Gulf Times)

Defence
Saudi and U.S. forces trial autonomous land transport
#Saudi #AVs - Earlier this month, the Royal Saudi Armed Forces participated in an Autonomous Tactical Vehicle System long-range convoy covering over 130 miles (209km) of fully autonomous driving as part of Native Fury 24, a joint military exercise with the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Central Command. (X)

Events
SDAIA announces Global AI Summit dates
#Saudi #GlobalAISummit - Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) has confirmed the dates of the Global AI Summit. The third edition of the summit will take place in Riyadh on September 10th, 11th and 12th, bringing together local and global AI leaders to discuss a current AI issues and topics. (Arab News)