Technology Innovation Institute (TII) has launched a blockchain-powered carbon tracking and trading platform at COP28. The platform, designed by TII’s Cryptography Research Center (CRC), aims to facilitate international trade in carbon tokens and promote green investment. It uses a lightweight, efficient blockchain implementation for transparent and secure verification of tracking and trading activities. Why it matters: The platform supports the UAE's sustainability goals and contributes to the global effort to achieve net-zero emissions by enabling verifiable and trustworthy carbon trading.
This paper analyzes the energy consumption and carbon footprint of LLM inference in the UAE compared to Iceland, Germany, and the USA. The study uses DeepSeek Coder 1.3B and the HumanEval dataset to evaluate code generation. It provides a comparative analysis of geographical trade-offs for climate-aware AI deployment, specifically addressing the challenges and potential of datacenters in desert regions.
A new survey paper provides a deep dive into post-training methodologies for Large Language Models (LLMs), analyzing their role in refining LLMs beyond pretraining. It addresses key challenges such as catastrophic forgetting, reward hacking, and inference-time trade-offs, and highlights emerging directions in model alignment, scalable adaptation, and inference-time reasoning. The paper also provides a public repository to continually track developments in this fast-evolving field.
KAUST and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) are collaborating to research the Red Sea's shallow reef and deep-water environments. The partnership utilizes Japanese specialty equipment and the KAUST-owned research vessel RV Thuwal, with funding from the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and KAUST. The initiative will address critical data gaps about the Red Sea and provide information for government regulations. Why it matters: This collaboration will advance understanding of the Red Sea's unique environment, relevant to Saudi Arabia's giga-projects and environmental protection efforts.
MBZUAI researchers have developed an AI program using vision transformers that can learn a person's handwriting style and generate text in that style. The US Patent and Trademark Office recently granted a patent for this technology, which could aid individuals with writing impairments. The system overcomes limitations of previous GAN-based approaches by processing long-range dependencies in handwriting. Why it matters: This patented AI tool enhances personalized text generation and has potential applications in assistive technology and improving handwriting recognition models.
MBZUAI Professor Sami Haddadin and his team developed a new framework called Tactile Skills to teach robots manual skills through touch and trial and error. This framework aims to address the gap in robots' ability to learn basic physical tasks compared to AI's advancements in language and image generation. The research, published in Nature Machine Intelligence, focuses on enabling robots to perform manipulation skills at industrial levels with low energy and compute demands. Why it matters: This research could lead to robots capable of performing household maintenance, industrial tasks, and even assisting in medical or rehabilitation settings, potentially solving labor shortages in various sectors in the region and beyond.
Abu Dhabi has launched a new supply chain platform named ADEED, designed to enhance the resilience of trade operations. The platform aims to integrate various stakeholders and processes within the supply chain, facilitating smoother logistics and reducing potential disruptions. This initiative is part of Abu Dhabi's broader strategy to bolster its economic infrastructure and diversify its capabilities. Why it matters: The ADEED platform strengthens the UAE's position as a regional trade hub by improving the efficiency and stability of its supply chain ecosystem through digital transformation.
GITEX, a large technology trade show brand, is expanding into Kenya with its inaugural edition planned for 2026. The event aims to unlock a reported US$2.4 billion in artificial intelligence (AI)-driven economic potential in the region. Kenya has seen growing interest in AI from both the public and private sectors. Why it matters: This expansion signals growing recognition of Africa's potential as a key market for AI and technology investment, with Kenya positioned as a regional hub.