Dubai sets stage for AI’s 70-year spotlight

Dubai will host a groundbreaking global event next year to shape the future of artificial intelligence over the next 70 years.

The 'AI@70: Towards a Global Humanity' conference will be held during Dubai AI Week 2026, bringing together top minds from academia, business, technology and other sectors to set the path forward for the development of artificial intelligence.

Timed to mark the 70th anniversary of the Dartmouth Workshop that established AI as a field of study, the event will be supported by Dartmouth College, the Ivy League university that hosted the original AI discussions in 1956.

His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and the UAE's Deputy Prime Minister and Defence  Minister, emphasized Dubai's commitment to knowledge-sharing and using AI to improve lives and society.

He called AI a transformative technology that will reshape humanity’s future, and said Dubai will lead the global conversation on harnessing AI for positive and inclusive development.

The event will be the prelude to the creation of the 'Humanity Lab', an incubator which will last eight weeks – the same duration as the original Dartmouth Conference.

The incubator, which will be hosted by the Dubai International Financial Centre's (DIFC) Dubai AI Campus, is designed to fuse art, philosophy and technology to develop innovative AI products.

The goal is to address key scientific, ethical and societal questions, and to create new possibilities for the future.

AI@70 will be organised by DIFC in partnership with advisory firm APCO.

Hamdan bin Mohammed directs the organisation of the AI@70 conference as part of “Dubai AI Week 2026.” The conference will bring together leading global experts in artificial intelligence to develop a comprehensive roadmap for the next seventy years, with the aim of harnessing AI… pic.twitter.com/4M7iPvuzdM

— Dubai Media Office (@DXBMediaOffice) April 25, 2025