AI and Soft Power: The UAE’s Strategy for Global Cooperation

Artificial Intelligence (AI) entered mainstream public consciousness with the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2023. Since then, governments across the world have been actively working to regulate and tame AI. Countries such as the United States (US), Canada, the United Kingdom (UK), India, Germany, and France—with the notable exception of the People’s Republic of China—have adopted hybrid frameworks combining both government and private sector for AI regulation, innovation, and development in their respective territories. As is customary in global politics, these developments have become a race to the top. Given AI’s implications on national security, media discourse is inundated with growing competition between the US and China (e.g., What DeepSeek Revealed About the Future of U.S.-China Competition). At the same time, AI is also enabling new avenues of global collaborations and cooperation, exemplified by partnerships such as the European Union (EU)-US Administrative Arrangement on Artificial Intelligence for the Public Good.

Objective 2: Developing AI for the UAE or All?

Amid this climate, the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) AI ministry-led grand vision includes 8 strategic objectives that explicitly identify and contribute to its state-centred purpose of ‘being the leader’ in the global techno-political landscape by offering avenues of global cooperation and the public good. Objective 2, in particular, expresses the UAE’s ambition to strengthen its competitive advantage in key sectors—namely, resource and energy, logistics and transport, and tourism and hospitality—through AI development.

Tourism and Hospitality as Soft Power

Within the tourism and hospitality sector, the UAE’s strategy includes developing AI technologies that can predict tourists’ preferences and provide customised services. At first glance, this may not appear directly relevant to the purpose of ‘inter-state’ cooperation. However, in practice, it significantly benefits the UAE’s tourism diplomacy as soft power. Engaging in tourism and hospitality enhances the travel experience, contributing to destination branding. It not only reinforces a positive image but also positively impacts the host country’s economy. For instance, Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Strategy 2030, part of its broader economic strategy, witnessed a 26 percent rise in international visitors in 2024, and is looking forward to future international collaborations and entertainment projects such as World Abu Dhabi’s Harry Potter World. This signals Abu Dhabi’s openness and cultural engagement.

Furthermore, soft power often operates by capturing the global imagination, where a country becomes symbolically linked to a cultural product—South Korea with K-pop or Japan with Anime. The UAE has consciously invested its soft power by hosting the Expo 2020 and by branding Dubai as an ‘influencer capital’. As a result, it is beneficial for the states to develop their tourism industries, soft power, which can translate into economic and political gains. For example, Thailand’s tourism diplomacy extended visa-free travel for Chinese citizens—a move readily reciprocated by China, resulting in a bilateral agreement of mutual visa exemption (2024).

Refining tourism and hospitality experiences through AI can create long-lasting positive impressions among international visitors in the destination state. This has the potential to enhance the tourists’ perception of the area in an enjoyable way, ultimately fostering more profitable interstate relations with the UAE. This aligns with the UAE’s broader strategic goal of developing leadership and a favourable image in the global arena.

Logistics and Transport for Globalisation

In logistics and transport, the UAE seeks to use its assets, management companies, and airport infrastructure as a testing ground for AI solutions to address global challenges such as air traffic management, baggage handling, aeroplane boarding, and airspace congestion. Many countries ,such as the US, Canada, and India, face a decreasing number of air traffic controllers. Moreover, the absence of standardised global traffic rules for coordination exacerbates delays, flight cancellations, and increased safety concerns for the passengers. Additionally, the current inefficient baggage handling process causes travellers’ luggage to go missing or get damaged, contributing to the overall unpleasant travellers’ experience. Nonetheless, AI offers promising solutions. For instance, with AI integration, airport authorities can find the shortest path for baggage transportation. These systems can improve baggage tracking via enhanced luggage classification systems. For example, “ALIX™ (Augmented Luggage Identification eXperience), IDEMIA Public Security’s solution empowered by artificial intelligence (AI) and Biometrics, helps digitalise and automate the luggage identification process by providing each bag with an augmented digital luggage tag.” It enhances the airport’s ground operations by speeding up the identification of luggage, including misplaced and lost items, through the use of images. On a broader level, the entire system of flying affects the movement of people and goods across nations—a key element of globalisation which shapes everyday tourism diplomacy among states.

By offering its assets and infrastructure to test AI-driven solutions, the UAE not only opens avenues for collaboration with other states facing similar challenges but also enhances its prestige, reinforces its reputation for reliability, and strengthens its position as an innovation hub among both state actors and global travellers through tourism diplomacy.

Resource and Energy for the Global Public Good

While the tourism and logistics sectors provide a clear map for strengthening overall globalisation, inter-state cooperation, and soft power of the UAE, the resource and energy sector has the potential to contribute to the global public good, particularly in the context of climate change. According to the objective details, the UAE is the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter while transitioning to renewable sources of energy and is also working on water desalination. In this case, the UAE is planning its proof-of-concept AI (e.g., Energyai by Adnoc) that can provide estimates about the demand and supply of world consumption of oil. Further, with smart grids and water recycling projects, the UAE offers opportunities to support small companies to test and improve this infrastructure via financial platforms such as Hub 71 and MGX.

Though this approach of using AI for the UAE’s benefit may seem domestically focused, if the objective materialises during implementation, the UAE can offer global opportunities for finding solutions to pressing issues such as growing water scarcity. For example, if the UAE found a sustainable and cost-effective water desalination technology, it could resolve the brine disposal issue that affects the marine ecosystem or provide infrastructure solutions to the less developed nations and landlocked regions in those countries (e.g., areas in Rajasthan in India) facing freshwater shortages. Simultaneously, this materialisation can also help build cooperation among states to resolve their internal issues of water scarcity and join the UAE’s initiatives to innovate.

Thus, a glance at Objective 2 of the UAE’s AI strategy highlights a strong potential for global cooperation for the public good. However, it unfolds against the backdrop of declining trust in international relations of 2025, especially with Washington’s strategy of protectionist politics such as tariffs and withdrawal from multilateral agreements such as the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. In addition, while the government-led AI grand vision of the UAE has the benefit of being implemented without the complexity and confusion of the public-private partnerships (PPPs), it still relies on attracting companies and talent for innovation. Logistically, the government-run model of the UAE can clash and pose complications in the workings of the bilateral agreements with states that work with PPP models on questions of AI responsibility, ethics, and modes of innovation.

Moreover, the UAE, much like other countries, must grapple with broader challenges tied to AI: algorithmic bias, intellectual property, and data protection and privacy concerns that hinder cooperation (and ultimately the realisation of ‘public good’) and its overall goal of being a global leader in AI. In light of the global political and economic challenges created by the Trump Administration’s tariffs, the UAE’s AI framework offers improved opportunities and a platform for global cooperation aimed at the public good.

Mehak Kapur (PhD) is a researcher and writer in international relations and political science.