My comments for Tom Hussain’s report on SCMP.
“Connectivity has been established as a major component of the UAE’s economic toolkit for several years now,” said Clemens Chay, a senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation Middle East think tank in Dubai, adding that deploying economic statecraft is both a “government priority and a guiding principle.”
he UAE’s decentralised web of logistical networks “can also be translated into built-in resilience”, Chay said. “In other words, if one port faces disruption, alternatives remain operational.”
More broadly, he said the UAE had preserved its first-mover advantage even as regional competition within the Gulf intensifies, with neighbouring states increasingly converging on “priority sectors”.
The US-led Pax Silica initiative illustrates this convergence. The UAE was a founding signatory of Washington’s AI and technology supply chain initiative, with Qatar following later while Saudi Arabia pursues its own AI agenda independently.
Chay said the UAE appeared most committed to AI among Gulf states – not only through partnerships but also by developing home-grown models like the Arabic-centric Jais.
Dr. Clemens Chay 