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Israel’s OurCrowd set to open AI R&D centre in Abu Dhabi

March 21, 2022

By Reuters

OurCrowd, one of Israel’s largest venture capital firms, plans to open an artificial intelligence-based research and development center in Abu Dhabi by early June, which will facilitate investment decision-making, a company official said.

The Global AI Innovation Center will employ around 50 engineers and OurCrowd will be the first customer, although the service is open to anyone, OurCrowd partner Sabah al-Binali said in an interview with Reuters during her first-ever visit to Israel. . .

He said OurCrowd was investing a “massive” sum in the project, which aims to analyze huge amounts of data, without giving out numbers.

“Trying to build AI in-house is very expensive, but we think we can almost modularize it and make it almost a utility where you can just use it as a service,” said al-Binali, head of OurCrowd. Arabia and comparing the plan to Amazon’s web. Service.

OurCrowd received a license to operate in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in November, following a normalization of relations between Israel and the UAE in 2020.

At the start of the deal, it was believed that Emirati funds would flow to Israeli tech companies, with officials hoping economic activity would hit $1 trillion over the next decade.

But Emirati investment in Israel has been slower than expected, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic which closed Israel’s borders to foreigners and for cultural reasons. Six Israeli companies in OurCrowd’s portfolio now operate in the UAE.

“There has been frustration for many on the Israeli side. They are not used to taking into account that the way the Emiratis do business is different,” al-Binali said.

Once Emirati investors can come to Israel and see the companies in person, the investments will come, he said, especially as the UAE sees itself as a gateway to South Asia. South East.

“If we get stuck in ‘Israel is about venture capital and the UAE is about funding’, we’re going to miss a lot of opportunities,” al-Binali said.

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