The United Arab Emirates (UAE) leads the world in artificial intelligence (AI) adoption, with 59.4% of the country’s working-age population using the technology, according to a new report by Microsoft.

The UAE joins Singapore (58.6%), Norway (45.3%), and Ireland (41.7%) as the world’s leaders in AI adoption, demonstrating that strong infrastructure, policy coordination, and digital readiness can drive rapid AI uptake.

Propelled by government backing

These nations aren’t traditionally known as AI powerhouses, hosting no world-renowned AI leaders, nor major foundational-model labs. Yet, they are seeing rapid AI uptake, underscoring how strategic public investment, national digital strategies, and coordinated policy frameworks can accelerate adoption at scale.

The UAE, for example, has only recently begun developing its own AI models, but the government has launched a range of initiatives to foster local AI development and deployment.

In 2017, it launched the UAE Strategy for AI 2031, aiming to boost government performance, create a new high-value market, and make the UAE the world leader in AI investment. In line with this strategy, it is deploying AI across many sectors, including government services, transportation, and healthcare.

Most recently, the UAE launched the AI for Development initiative, committing to invest US$1 billion to expand AI infrastructure and AI-enabled services across Africa, especially across areas including education, and climate adaptation.

Plans are also underway to build one of the world’s largest data center hubs in Abu Dhabi in partnership with US technology companies. The project, unveiled in May, will feature a 5-gigawatt capacity campus spanning 10 square miles, and will be built by G42, a state-linked AI development holding company, and operated in partnership with several US companies.

Microsoft is among the biggest AI investors in the UAE, committing US$15.2 billion in investment between 2023 and 2029 to expand local data centers, advance AI technologies, and nurture local AI talent. It aims to skill one million people in the UAE by the end of 2027.

This year, Microsoft established the Global Engineering Development Center in Abu Dhabi to attract world-class tech talent to the UAE, help develop new products and services for the local market, and support institutions and businesses across the region with their AI and cloud needs.

It also opened a new center for the Microsoft AI for Good Lab in Abu Dhabi which collaborates with non-profits, startups, researchers, academic institutions, and local businesses to address humanitarian challenges across the Middle East and Africa (MEA) using AI.

Singapore, which ranks second in AI adoption after the UAE, shows a similar pattern. Singapore is neither a world-leading AI builder, nor a leading AI infrastructure hub. Instead, the country’s rapid embrace of AI builds on decades of investment in digital infrastructure and education.

Today, the city state boasts more than 1,100 AI startups, and claims the top position in global talent ranking, fueled by AI readiness.

US, China lead in AI models and infrastructure

Though the UAE and Singapore top the world in AI adoption, the US, led by OpenAI’s GPT-5, dominates in AI model development, with China rapidly advancing in parallel.

OpenAI’s widely popular ChatGPT chatbot is the world’s biggest AI tool, boasts a staggering 700 million weekly active users, and a total of 4.7 billion in monthly site visits in January 2025. according to data from Visual Capitalist and Aitools.xyz. OpenAI is followed by Canva with 887 million monthly visits that same month, and Google Translate with 595 million visits.

China’s DeepSeek ranks fourth with 268 million visits in January 2025. The app posted the sector’s biggest month-on-month increase in monthly visit at 2,026%.

Currently, the top AI models are concentrated in only seven countries, which besides the US and China, include South Korea, France, the UK, Canada, and Israel. This suggests that model development is clustered among a small group of technologically advanced nations with strong research ecosystems, deep capital pools, and established semiconductor supply chains.

The US and China also dominate in AI infrastructure. AI infrastructure includes the physical and energy systems that enable model training and inference, mainly data centers, connectivity, and power. Together, the US and China host 86% of global data center capacity, underscoring how heavily concentrated the foundation of the AI economy still really is.

AI has become the fastest-adopted technology in human history, attracting more than 1.2 billion users in under 36 months, according to the Microsoft report. The figure surpasses the adoption rate of the Internet, the personal computer, or even the smartphone.

Enterprises are also embracing AI at a fast pace. McKinsey’s latest global AI survey polled nearly 2,000 organizations in June and July 2025 and found that 88% use AI regularly in at least one business function. The figure represents a 10 point increase from 78% in 2024. Though most are still experimenting with or piloting AI (62%), approximately a third have begun scaling their AI programs.

Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Midle East, based on image by farknot via Freepik