In 2025, the Arab world crossed a threshold in how it deals with artificial intelligence (AI). This was no longer about “catching up” or “fostering innovation.” It was about money — serious money. Tens of billions of dollars were committed to building the digital foundations of an AI economy, in a push that echoes the region’s oil and gas investments of the last century. The real question now is what those billions will amount to in practice. What happens in 2026, when AI shifts from press releases to actual operations?

The investment figures announced over the past year tell a clear story. Most of the money did not go to apps or startups. It went to the heavy infrastructure: computing power, data centers, and advanced cloud systems. The United Arab Emirates offers a particularly clear example of this approach—one that prioritizes owning the infrastructure itself, not just hosting AI services.

Through its MGX fund, Abu Dhabi has moved aggressively into large-scale data center investments worldwide. Reports of a deal approaching $40 billion linked to Aligned Data Centers point to a strategy focused on physical assets – land, power, cooling, and buildings – as the true source of leverage in the global AI economy. Additional reports suggesting the fund could raise total investments to as much as $25 billion underline a broader reality: this is no longer a regional contest but part of an international race to control AI infrastructure.

Saudi Arabia has taken a similar route. At the LEAP 2025 conference, the Kingdom announced roughly $14.9 billion in new AI and digital infrastructure projects, covering advanced computing, chips, robotics, and data centers. The logic is straightforward: build capacity first; let the market follow.

That logic became even clearer in May 2025 with the launch of Humain, a new AI platform backed by the Public Investment Fund. Humain is designed as a national AI engine, spanning the entire stack – from data centers and sovereign cloud services to large language models, including Arabic multimodal systems, and practical applications for government and business.

Qatar joined the race later, but with a bold entry. In December 2025, it announced a nearly $20 billion partnership with Brookfield to develop advanced computing infrastructure and data centers, signaling its intention to secure a place in the region’s emerging AI map.

So, what changes in 2026? First, the region moves from an economy of announcements to an economy of execution. Success will no longer be measured by conference headlines or pledged sums, but by how many megawatts are actually running, how full the data centers are, and how long customers are willing to commit. Every billion dollars announced in 2025 will face a basic test: how much real computing power has it produced?

Second, the first wave of large-scale Arab AI services will start to appear, especially in government, finance, and telecommunications. But their impact will depend on a factor that remained unresolved in 2025: access to advanced chips, and the geopolitical constraints that come with them. Without reliable access to cutting-edge processors, even the most impressive infrastructure risks turning into an expensive bottleneck.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, 2026 will raise the question of demand. Will Arab governments and institutions become long-term buyers of AI services? Or will the region depend on foreign demand to absorb surplus capacity? The answer will determine whether the billions committed in 2025 drive real economic transformation – or simply support a model built around exporting computing power.

In the end, 2026 will be the year when Arab AI ambitions meet reality. Not because it will bring dramatic launches, but because it will bring assessment – of usage, performance, and value. Only then will it become clear which of the bold numbers announced in 2025 helped lay the groundwork for a new economy and which were merely down payments on a longer, to-be-determined process.