Will the Gulf’s push for its own AI be successful?

Hello and welcome to TechScape. Today in tech we’re discussing how the Gulf states are attempting to gain sovereignty over their own artificial intelligence in response to an unstable United States. Added to this are US tech giants’ plans to spend more than $600 billion this year alone.

Can the Gulf states capture some of the US technology dominance?

I spent most of last week in Doha at Web Summit Qatar, the Gulf region’s new version of the popular annual technology conference. One theme stood out in the speeches I saw and the conversations I had: sovereignty.

The conference’s founder set the tone of the summit on the opening night: “Three years ago (when Web Summit Qatar began) people were talking about entering a multipolar world. We live in a multipolar world now,” said Paddy Cosgrave.

As evidence, he pointed to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s strong rebuke of Donald Trump in Davos a few weeks earlier. He referred to the act that had preceded him…