Gates Foundation praises UAE approach to AI and agricultural innovation
In the UAE, the Gates Foundation positively assessed the country’s approach to artificial intelligence and agricultural innovation. The foundation’s CEO, Mark Suzman, told The National that such initiatives could help make AI more accessible to people around the world.
Suzman recalled the Aim for Scale initiative, which the Gates Foundation and the UAE announced during the COP28 climate conference in 2023. According to him, each side allocated $100 million to support agricultural innovation and reduce hunger.
AI for health and weather forecasts
The foundation’s head also highlighted the work of the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in the UAE. According to him, the university is conducting interesting research into AI’s potential to prevent diseases and improve weather forecasting.
These areas align with the theme of the Gates Foundation’s new Make this Matter AI report, which focuses on how technology can improve people’s lives. The foundation also announced that it plans to spend at least $1 billion over the next two years to expand access to AI, related solutions, opportunities and knowledge.
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Risk of technological inequality
Suzman warned that the technology gap for lower-income countries could widen unless linguistic diversity in AI, access to technology and basic infrastructure are developed, and unless systems are used in agriculture and for environmental needs. In his assessment, this could deepen inequality in access to healthcare services, education and tools for improving agricultural productivity.
The foundation’s report emphasizes the need to create AI tools for all languages spoken by people and adapt software to their needs. It also discusses investments in training healthcare workers, farmers, teachers and developers so that they can determine which technologies will work best in their conditions.
A 2025 MBZUAI study found that multilingual models still perform better in English and show weaker results on scientific and technical issues for languages with less data, including Amharic, Arabic and Yoruba. Suzman believes that the Gates Foundation’s partnerships with Microsoft, Google and other companies could help create language datasets and expand AI accessibility.
