Our AI Opportunity Initiative comes to the Middle East and North Africa

The potential impact of AI on the Middle East and North Africa’s (MENA) economy is phenomenal — adding a value of over $320 billion by 2030, according to the Economist Impact Report. But in order to seize the opportunities of AI, we need to equip people with the right skills to grow. And to do this the right way, we believe in collaboration and working closely with organizations across the region to transform lives and communities for the better.

Last week, we launched the AI Opportunity Initiative for the Middle East & North Africa, its largest AI initiative in the region, that will provide essential AI skills, research funding and access to helpful AI products. Google.org, Google's philanthropic arm, is planning to contribute US$15 million, between this year and the end of 2027, through funding to organizations across the region to ensure the opportunities created by AI reach everyone.

This initiative builds on our long-standing commitment to the region, where, together with local partners, we’ve trained 3 million people on essential digital skills since 2018. Through this new initiative, we aim to further empower half a million individuals within two years with critical AI skills.

AI trainings across the region

As part of the AI Opportunity Initiative for MENA, we’re launching a new Arabic language AI-training curriculum under Google's digital skills program “Maharat min Google” and Coursera to equip people with AI skills like prompt engineering.

Because AI skills need to be accessible by underserved communities, Google.org is providing a grant to Village Capital to equip Business Support Organizations (BSOs) with skills and resources to train underserved workers on AI skills in Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the UAE.

Earlier this year, we announced the launch of Experience AI, an educational program created by Raspberry Pi Foundation and Google DeepMind, covering AI literacy skills. The program is now available in Arabic. To ensure the program reaches more educators in the region, Raspberry Pi Foundation will use grant funding from Google.org to train teachers on AI Literacy, to equip their students in the region (aged 11-14 yrs) with AI safety skills to better understand and navigate the challenges of AI technologies. In the UAE and Saudi, this will be run in partnership with Amideast.

AI research and applied solutions to address social challenges

We continue to invest in essential research globally. As part of the AI Initiative for MENA, we are introducing a new fund to support local university researchers in the region focusing on AI solutions for healthcare, climate change, education and beyond.

Google.org is providing a grant to the New York University Abu Dhabi’s startAD program, a startup accelerator, to identify and develop AI-powered applications that help provide healthcare access for vulnerable populations in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. This includes senior citizens, disadvantaged youth and people from low-income backgrounds.

A more helpful Gemini experience in Arabic

Gemini was launched in Arabic last year. Since then, we’ve been seeing people in the region use it for various purposes, covering both productivity and creativity. Today, we’re announcing new features for Arabic-speaking users globally.

• Gems on Gemini in Arabic: This allows people to create personalized AI experts for various tasks, including career and learning guidance, brainstorming, editing and coding support. The feature is available for Gemini Advanced users.
• Gemini for Teens: This is a dedicated and age-appropriate experience for users under the age of 18, with features like double-check response, which helps evaluate whether there’s content across the web to substantiate Gemini’s responses.
• Imagen 3 in Arabic: This enables image generation using Arabic language prompts.
• Gemini Live in Arabic: This is a free-flowing conversational experience that allows users to chat with Gemini on mobile. The feature is available on Android devices.

Investments in infrastructure

We recently announced a partnership with the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia to expand our existing Dammam Google Cloud region with an AI hub to support global customers. The partnership will also advance AI research in Arabic-language models and provide AI and digital upskilling programs to help create highly-skilled jobs and opportunities for global businesses to fuel growth through cloud adoption.

The AI Opportunity Initiative for MENA was announced at the AI Connect event, held at the Etihad Museum in Dubai, with the presence of Ruth Porat, President and Chief Investment Officer at Google and Alphabet along with government representatives, businesses and industry experts from the region.

AI has the potential to unlock incredible opportunities for the region, and we’re looking forward to partnering with individuals, communities, businesses and organizations to build more inclusive and accessible AI opportunities for everyone.