Scale AI, valued at $29 billion, launched its UAE entity at the Dubai International Financial Centre on 26 October at a signing ceremony during the Dubai AI Festival, The National reported. The move gives the AI data and infrastructure company a Dubai base from which to work with UAE institutions.
Key points
- Scale AI has established its UAE operation at Dubai AI Campus within DIFC.
- Its 8 October memorandum with Presight sets out work the companies plan to explore, including AI agents for government and enterprise customers.
- Scale says it has trained or upskilled nearly 6,000 people in Qatar.
Scale AI takes a base at Dubai AI Campus
Scale’s UAE branch is based at Dubai AI Campus, within DIFC, according to a company release described by The National. DIFC is a financial centre with an independent legal framework. Trevor Thompson, Scale’s global managing director, called the decision to make its home there “a long-term commitment”. He said the company intends to work with UAE institutions on AI for important decisions and uses.
The campus opened on 18 May 2024 as part of the Dubai Universal Blueprint for Artificial Intelligence, a programme to expand AI adoption, Unite.AI reported. DIFC said its first phase had more than 75 registered businesses on a 10,000-square-foot campus. It said a second phase would extend over 100,000 square feet and was expected to attract more than 500 companies and create more than 3,000 jobs by 2028.
Scale provides tools for organising and labelling data used in AI systems. Its software can identify objects in images and tag subjects in text, with people able to review and alter the results. The company lists Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft, Nvidia and Cohere among its clients, The National reported. Scale has more than 1,000 employees. Francis deSouza, formerly chief operating officer at Google Cloud, became its chief executive in July.
Presight memorandum sets out proposed AI work
Scale’s other UAE arrangement predates the Dubai launch. On 8 October, it signed a memorandum of understanding with Presight, a UAE-based applied AI company, at the AI Everything event in Abu Dhabi. Adel Al Sharji, Presight’s chief operating officer, and Jules de Boinville, Scale’s head of EMEA, signed it, Unite.AI reported.
The companies plan to explore designing and refining AI agents for government and enterprise customers in the UAE and other markets they mutually agree on. Successful work could become repeatable offerings for government customers in the UAE and elsewhere in the region. Those proposals place potential products beyond the memorandum itself: the arrangement sets out work to investigate, rather than a customer deployment.
Scale and Presight also intend to examine evaluation frameworks that would assess agents’ accuracy, reliability and performance while they operate. Their proposed work includes setting requirements for what an agent must accomplish, identifying errors it cannot make and deciding where a person retains authority. The companies said those checks would continue after deployment, rather than ending before an application goes live.
The proposed applications cover water, power, healthcare and transport. The companies also plan to examine simulations that could test decisions before systems are deployed. For buyers, the memorandum describes development and testing across several settings, with any repeatable government offering dependent on successful work under the collaboration.
Scale cites training work in Qatar
Scale describes evaluation, oversight and local skills as parts of its approach in the UAE. It says systems should be tested against defined requirements before and after launch, with human review where decisions call for it. The company also says local teams should be able to operate and improve the systems themselves.
As an example of its regional work, Scale says it has trained or upskilled nearly 6,000 people in Qatar and built applications there that the public uses in daily life.
