The first of its kind, the Dubai Future Foundation pledges to train one million people in artificial intelligence within the next three years.
The UAE is preparing for the post-oil era and aims to transform itself from an oil state into an AI powered state.
At the recent launch of the ‘One Million AI Prompters’ initiative in Dubai, Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum says that 40 percent of the UAE’s gross domestic product is to be generated with artificial intelligence.
To this end, the UAE is investing billions in the project and had appointed the world’s first Minister of State for AI in 2017. Since then, there has been a concerted effort to attract tech talent and funding for AI-based start-ups in the region.
“We want to be the most future-ready city and continue to prepare for the AI era by developing expertise and skills that support global technological change and put Dubai at the forefront of innovation,” says HH.
‘One Million AI Prompters’, the first-of-its-kind prompt engineering championship, prepares expertise and competencies in AI prompt engineering, which involves crafting precise and effective instructions for AI systems to achieve desired outcomes in various tasks, ranging from generating creative content to solving complex challenges.
According to the Minister of State for AI Digital Economy Omar Al Olama, AI prompt engineering is critical to getting the best out of generative AI. It involves understanding the capabilities, limitations, and nuances of AI models and is predicted to be one of the most important skills in the future workplace.
“We want to show people that there is a full spectrum of use cases. Whether you are technical or non-technical, you can utilize these tools,” says Al Olama.
The ‘One Million AI Prompters’ Engineering Championship saw participants completing in categories beyond traditional coding, such as literature and art, highlighting the broad applicability of AI tools. In AI, a prompt refers to a specific request to a language model (e.g. ChatGPT or others) that can provide the user with an answer or solution.
The Global Prompt Engineering Championship received thousands of entries from around 100 countries. Thirty finalists from 13 countries qualified to come to Dubai to compete for the title of best prompt engineer in the competition’s three categories. The winners were Australian Megan Fowkes in the art category Indian Ajay Cyril, 33, for coding, and Aditya Nair, 34, in literature. The Dubai Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DCAI) provided one million dirhams, approximately USD 273,000 in prize money for the three winners.
Microsoft, Google, and IBM participated in the first championship by hosting workshops and other companies have also expressed interest in AI collaborations. In 2019, the UAE opened its first AI university and the country’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala has set up USD 100 billion fund to advance AI-based projects.
Microsoft also recently invested USD 1.5 billion in G42, a UAE-based AI holding company.
Notes from the editor: For more information on the Global Prompt Engineering Championship click here.
