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Saudi Arabia asserts AI ambitions

10 September 2024

Artificial intelligence (AI) helped to facilitate the diagnosis of early-stage diabetes in over 800,000 patients in Saudi Arabia in 2023.

This demonstrates that Saudi Arabia has started to reap the benefits of AI applications in key sectors, considering that diabetes affects over 4 million people, or about 11% of the kingdom's population, Abdullah Al-Sharif Alghamdi, president of the Saudi Data & Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA), said in his opening keynote address at the ongoing Global AI (Gain) Summit in Riyadh.

In his speech, Alghamdi highlighted Allam, an open-source Arabic large-language model developed by his agency, which was launched last year.

Available on IBM's watsonx.ai studio, Allam has helped to enhance and deliver translation services at Saudi Arabia's Justice Ministry, said Alghamdi, emphasising that a strong partnership between humans and AI is key in addressing challenges in governance and delivering public services.

Seat at the table

Alghamdi underscored Riyadh's ambition to participate in developing global AI standards and advancing AI ethics and regulations.

For instance, Saudi Arabia joined the 39-member UN Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence last year.

The SDAIA has also established the International Centre for AI Research & Ethics (ICAIRE), which is classified as a Category 2 institution under the UN Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organisation (Unesco).

During the opening day of this year's Gain Summit, the SDAIA and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD) announced the establishment of a Middle East hub of OECD's AI Policy Observatory, which tracks over 1,000 AI-related policies globally.

The new regional hub will be located in Riyadh and will help track AI incidents, hazards and risks to help support AI policy development in the Arab-speaking world. 

It is expected to help build a catalogue of tools for the Arabic-speaking world to manage challenges posed by AI.

The Gain Summit 2024, which attracted thousands of delegates from around the world, opened today at King Abdulaziz International Convention Centre in Riyadh. 

Major AI companies, including US-headquartered technology firms Microsoft, IBM, Google, Hewlett-Packard and Amazon Web Services; Germany's Siemens; and China's Huawei are exhibiting their AI platforms and solutions at the trade show.

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Jennifer Aguinaldo

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