핵심요약

• 2017년 UAE는 세계 최초로 AI 장관을 임명하며 AI 선두국가로 도약하려 했습니다.
• 이란과의 전쟁으로 인해 수천 개의 미사일과 드론 공격이 글로벌 기업의 데이터센터를 타격했습니다.
• 호르무즈 해협 봉쇄로 인해 하드웨어 공급에 지연이 발생했습니다.
• 전문가들은 UAE의 자본 유입, 에너지, 정치적 의지 등 기본적인 강점은 여전히 유지되고 있다고 지적했습니다.

도입

이란과의 전쟁으로 인해 UAE의 AI 전략이 큰 타격을 입었습니다. 이는 글로벌 기업들의 데이터센터가 타격받았으며, 하드웨어 공급에도 지연이 발생한 점에서 특히 중요합니다. 투자자들에게는 UAE의 AI 전략이 어떻게 변화할지, 그리고 기본적인 강점이 어떻게 유지될지에 대한 관심이 높을 것입니다.

본문 1: 데이터센터 타격의 영향

수천 개의 미사일과 드론 공격이 글로벌 기업들의 데이터센터를 타격했습니다. 이는 데이터센터가 이제 오일 리파이너리나 해수 담수 시설과 같이 중요한 인프라가 되었음을 보여줍니다. 데이터센터의 안전성이 위협받는 상황에서는 AI 전략의 추진에도 큰 차질이 빚어질 수 있습니다. 이는 UAE가 AI 선두국가로 도약하는 데 큰 장애물이 될 수 있습니다. 데이터센터의 안전성을 확보하기 위한 추가적인 투자와 기술 개발이 필요할 것입니다.

본문 2: 호르무즈 해협 봉쇄의 영향

호르무즈 해협의 봉쇄로 인해 하드웨어 공급에 지연이 발생했습니다. 이는 UAE의 AI 전략에 필요한 하드웨어를 공급받는 데 어려움을 초래할 수 있습니다. 하드웨어 공급의 지연은 AI 기술의 개발과 구축에도 영향을 미칠 수 있습니다. 이는 UAE가 AI 선두국가로 도약하는 데 또 다른 장애물이 될 수 있습니다. 하드웨어 공급의 안정화를 위한 대안이 필요할 것입니다.

본문 3: UAE의 기본적인 강점

전문가들은 UAE의 자본 유입, 에너지, 정치적 의지 등 기본적인 강점이 여전히 유지되고 있다고 지적했습니다. 이는 UAE가 AI 전략을 추진하는 데 필요한 자원을 확보하는 데 도움이 될 수 있습니다. 기본적인 강점이 유지된다면, UAE는 AI 선두국가로 도약하는 데 필요한 자원을 확보할 수 있을 것입니다. 이는 UAE의 AI 전략이 장기적으로 성공할 가능성을 높일 것입니다.

결론

UAE의 AI 전략은 이란과의 전쟁으로 인해 큰 타격을 입었습니다. 그러나 기본적인 강점이 유지된다면, UAE는 AI 선두국가로 도약하는 데 필요한 자원을 확보할 수 있을 것입니다. 투자자들은 UAE의 AI 전략이 어떻게 변화할지, 그리고 기본적인 강점이 어떻게 유지될지에 대한 관심을 계속 기울여야 할 것입니다.

---

원문 링크: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMijwFBVV95cUxOdFd4VFptRGNvOF83aDBPQmZUaU1JN1JvSVRGbFJoaE9SdkQtcEVNNnBiV3JWZFEtNm9WQldlNVhoSTd4aWNIZ29CMFlrTWdSVW1DQkI3bDZNMkJEcW5FaVZTbFo4U0IwRWhJUllmemNFMHNicTkwLTE5Y2lWcGpOREhwNkw3cXJaZERreXV5VdIBjwFBVV95cUxNZHlxY2ZReWRKTkRNMzlTN3lkOFJHY1RGMlU0M3JLY2JQLUlkeTRpU0FtdWxUVTdwZzBSdVc3ak93Smw0VHQtNmdqLVJLWV9BM05ITlptQnhTSDRjYXVhT1c1c09RWWJpSnN1Snl0aFc2aGI3eDNTWGRFSHFkbFNmbjFpR3FVQmFMU0l1WHlrdw?oc=5

How the Iran war has disrupted Abu Dhabi's AI strategy - dw.com

When the United Arab Emirates appointed Omar Sultan Al Olama as the world's first minister of state for artificial intelligence in 2017, he promised to turn the United Arab Emirates into the world's most prepared country for AI. Only six years later, Al Olama was listed on TIME magazine's inaugural TIME100 AI list and Abu Dhabi was well underway in implementing its digital strategy .

However, after the United States and Israel attacked Iran in February, the UAE became one of Iran's key targets : Over the course of the war, thousands of Iranian missile and drone strikes were aimed at local offices and data centers operated by global companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Nvidia.

The news magazine The Conversation reported that the war also raised questions about the safety of undersea cables which are essential for data centers and other digital infrastructure. Furthermore, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran , and later by the United States , has delayed hardware deliveries.

"Data centers have long become critical infrastructure and need to be better protected just like oil refineries or desalination plants," Sebastian Sons, a senior researcher at the German think tank CARPO, told DW.

Despite the impact of the war on the Gulf state, observers point out that not everything is different.

"The political risk profile has changed, but the fundamentals haven't changed," Mohammed Soliman, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, told DW. "The UAE still lies at the intersection of capital flows between East and West, it still has the energy, land and political will to build AI capabilities at scale."

In the past, the Gulf region has weathered different crises, from the financial crisis of the late 2000s to the COVID-19 pandemic and previous Gulf conflicts, all of which tested the Gulf business model , said Sons, adding that "during all these crises, the UAE has demonstrated a high level of resilience and found ways to reinvent itself and deal with such strategic situations."

In his view, significant damage would only occur if the Iran conflict continued for a long time and the UAE couldn't find a way to adapt its business model.

However, it remains to be seen in what way the UAE's global compute diplomacy strategy will pivot in the short, medium and long term. In May, a planned $1 billion mega-data-center project in Kenya was called off, Business Insider Africa reported.

It may well be that Abu Dhabi's AI strategy, dubbed "UAE AI Strategy 2031," is already diversified enough to withstand the Iran crisis.

At the heart of the ambition is G42, a multibillion-dollar Abu Dhabi-based conglomerate founded in 2018 that specializes in artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

In 2019, the UAE inaugurated the Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, the world's first graduate-level university dedicated entirely to AI with the ambition of making it the "Stanford of the Middle East."

For a while, the UAE also tried to position itself as a technological swing state between the US and China. However, this balancing act drew scrutiny from Washington and in 2023, the UAE severed all AI ties with China according to a report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

At the moment, Abu Dhabi is developing the Stargate UAE project, a massive cluster of data centers for OpenAI and other US companies.

The project covers an area the size of Monaco and is expected to be the world's largest data center outside the United States. According to various industry sources, between 35 and 58 data centers are currently operational in the UAE.

While UAE salaries easily compete with Silicon Valley paychecks, the country has yet to appear in the top tier of global AI engineering pools, according to a 2026 report by the Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council.

"Despite massive investments, much of the region's AI ecosystem continues to rely on foundational models, algorithms and benchmarks developed elsewhere, making it a consumer rather than a primary producer," Fatima Abu Salem, a professor of computer science at the American University of Beirut, told DW. "This dependence is reinforced by reliance on expatriate expertise and foreign academic institutions for advanced research, training and validation."

Researchers have criticized the quality of the UAE's Arabic AI models, such as Jais. Speaking on condition of anonymity, they told DW that they found results from Jais "surprisingly poor." In September 2025, the university launched "K2 Think", an open-source AI reasoning model. Yet again, independent researchers said the performance of the K2 Think model was overstated.

However, as analyst Sebastian Sons pointed out, "at this point, the UAE has invested so much into its AI strategy that turning around won't be an option." In his view, for the UAE it's much more than a nice-to-have project, it's about becoming an irreplaceable and leading key player in the field.

This echoes a sentence by the AI Minister Omar Sultan Al Olama. As early as 2018, he already said: " Data is the new oil."

This article was originally written in Arabic.

Correction, June 27, 2026: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of Mohammed Soliman. DW apologizes for the error.

Source: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMijwFBVV95cUxOdFd4VFptRGNvOF83aDBPQmZUaU1JN1JvSVRGbFJoaE9SdkQtcEVNNnBiV3JWZFEtNm9WQldlNVhoSTd4aWNIZ29CMFlrTWdSVW1DQkI3bDZNMkJEcW5FaVZTbFo4U0IwRWhJUllmemNFMHNicTkwLTE5Y2lWcGpOREhwNkw3cXJaZERreXV5VdIBjwFBVV95cUxNZHlxY2ZReWRKTkRNMzlTN3lkOFJHY1RGMlU0M3JLY2JQLUlkeTRpU0FtdWxUVTdwZzBSdVc3ak93Smw0VHQtNmdqLVJLWV9BM05ITlptQnhTSDRjYXVhT1c1c09RWWJpSnN1Snl0aFc2aGI3eDNTWGRFSHFkbFNmbjFpR3FVQmFMU0l1WHlrdw?oc=5