A new department will be established under MCIT, aiming to accelerate AI adoption.
Qatar’s Cabinet on Wednesday approved a draft resolution to establish the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence as a part of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT).
The decision came as part of a broader plan to make changes to some of the ministry’s administrative units during the cabinet’s weekly meeting, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Affairs, Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.
“The Cabinet approved a draft resolution amending the organisation of some administrative units comprising the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and defining their competencies,” the Qatar News Agency said, citing Minister of Justice and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs, Ibrahim bin Ali Al-Mohannadi.
“This amendment aims to establish and organise the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence within the Ministry,” it added.
The move comes in the backdrop of Qatar’s efforts to leverage its existing digital infrastructure to adopt AI in public services and government processes to improve quality and efficiency.
An Artificial Intelligence Committee was established under Cabinet Decision No. (10) of 2021, which MCIT described as a move catered towards “advancing Qatar’s AI initiatives, aligning its efforts with Qatar National Vision 2030 and the Digital Agenda 2030 to accelerate digital transformation”
The ministry also leads the GovAI program, which aims to forge strategic partnerships with firms to accelerate and maximise the use of AI across all Qatari sectors. Global tech giant Microsoft is currently listed as an active partner in the initiative.
In February, the government signed a five-year deal with Scale AI to introduce AI-powered tools and training to improve government services.
A broader vision for “AI+X Future”, which consists of producing and attracting talent as well as creating AI-augmented jobs en route to making Qatar a knowledge-based economy, was detailed in the National AI Strategy of 2019.
Qatar’s push towards AI adoption and development has seen the country’s sovereign wealth fund invest in various tech ventures, the most recent one of which was announced on Tuesday.
The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) joined a cohort of major global investors in the Series F fundraise worth $13 billion (approximately QAR 47.3 billion) in Anthropic, the U.S.-based artificial intelligence safety and research company behind popular large language model Claude.
In June, QIA joined Series F fundraising for Applied Intuition, a leader in vehicle intelligence, adding to the list consisting of Turkish AI Insider, social media platform X’s xAI, and AI platform Cresta.
During the 2024 World AI Summit held in Doha last December, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani unveiled Fanar, an AI model capable of generating, summarising, rewriting and explaining Arabic texts.
It was developed by Qatar Computing Research Institute, another linchpin in the Gulf country’s bid to place itself as a regional leader in digital innovation.
