The Gulf’s influence was once measured in barrels and pipelines. Today, it is measured in compute, data, and intelligence. Meet the fifty leaders driving the region’s AI transformation.
This list was first published in the June 2026 issue of Business Today Middle East.
For decades, the Gulf’s influence was measured in barrels, pipelines, and sovereign wealth. Today, it is increasingly measured in compute, data, and intelligence.
The shift became impossible to ignore in 2026. As global technology leaders converged on Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, the region emerged not merely as a customer of artificial intelligence but as one of its most ambitious architects. Saudi Arabia accelerated its sovereign AI ambitions through HUMAIN and a wave of partnerships with the world’s leading technology companies. In the UAE, Stargate UAE announced plans for one of the largest AI infrastructure developments ever undertaken outside the United States, positioning the country at the centre of the global race for computing power.
Yet the Middle East’s AI story is not fundamentally about data centres, chips, or billion-dollar investments. It is about people.
Across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Bahrain, a new generation of leaders is reshaping how nations govern, businesses compete, capital is allocated, and innovation is created. They are ministers writing national AI strategies, researchers building frontier models, founders solving regional challenges with machine intelligence, investors deploying capital at unprecedented scale, and executives transforming entire industries through AI adoption.
The Business Today AI 50 is our annual list of the individuals driving the Middle East’s AI transformation. Every person featured here shares one defining characteristic: artificial intelligence is central to their mandate. They are the leaders building, funding, governing and deploying the technologies that will shape the region’s future.
As the global AI race intensifies, the region is no longer watching from the sidelines. It is building the infrastructure, institutions, and talent that will define the next chapter of the intelligence economy.
What’s Inside
The Business Today AI 50 spans five categories, each representing a distinct dimension of AI leadership in the region:
Government and Policy — The ministers, officials and public sector leaders writing the national AI strategies and governance frameworks that will shape how the region competes globally.
Sovereign Investment and Infrastructure — The investors and infrastructure builders deploying capital at unprecedented scale to build the compute, cloud and data foundation the AI economy requires.
AI Companies and Technology — The founders and CEOs building the region’s most significant AI companies, from sovereign large language models to enterprise AI platforms solving specifically Gulf challenges.
Academic and Research — The scientists and researchers whose work underpins the models, algorithms and frameworks powering the global AI revolution, many of whom are now based in the region.
Corporate and Enterprise AI — The executives embedding AI into the daily operations of the region’s largest organisations, from banks and telecoms to energy companies and government utilities.
