The global surge in Artificial Intelligence (AI) investments propelled by the increased demand in rising digital industries, from digital health and future finance to cybersecurity and public services, has ignited a race among businesses to secure specialized talents, sustain the relentless pace of their tech innovations, and their position among the early adopters of AI. Goldman Sachs research has forecasted that global investment into AI could reach $200 billion by 2025, while Bloomberg reported that the generative AI alone could have a $1.3 trillion market value by 2032.

This growth is driven by a widespread acknowledgement amongst global leaders that AI solutions are an increasingly vital tool for driving enhanced productivity and higher growth. As Thomas Pramotedham, CEO of Abu Dhabi-based AI enterprise Presight, recently told the GITEX Tech Waves podcast: “Today you’ll see companies applying AI and AI evolving – in five, ten years’ time, it will get smarter, and when it gets smarter, you’ll get more efficiency and shorter routes to answers for difficult and complex questions. In return, that will be to the betterment of society and the world we live in.”

Such as Presight, over 3,500 of the world’s most prestigious brands investing in AI solutions will converge at the Dubai World Trade Centre, from 14-18 October, for the world’s largest tech and start-up event, GITEX GLOBAL 2024. The powerhouse exhibition and conference will bring together the biggest tech community in the world, from experts, founders, and investors to government leaders and senior executives, to showcase their breakthrough AI technologies, discuss mutual synergies, and forge key collaborations to catalyze future advancements in the industry.

The landmark event will spotlight the opportunities and challenges surrounding the AI global economy, including ethical development, quantum computing, large language models (LLM), policies and regulations, real implications of AI in edtech, health, and finance, and the future of work and employment. The rapid AI emergence still impacts the job market according to recent studies. In 2022, Deloitte estimated that there were only 22,000 AI specialists in the world while, last year, it was predicted that only half of all AI-related jobs could be filled.

UAE’s Bold Steps in Creating the World’s Future AI Economy

Leapfrogging several global markets, the response of the UAE, which has been increasingly successful as a global hub for the AI industry, consists of a robust long-term government agenda to harness the full potential of AI to empower individuals, communities, and organisations. Aligned with the UAE National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence and a clear vision to become the world leader in AI by 2031, the country has invested in integrating AI into public services, energy, tourism, and education.

In Dubai, the leadership has shown profound commitment to making the emirate the world’s fastest, most agile, and future-ready city by launching the Dubai Universal Blueprint for Artificial Intelligence. This highly strategic annual plan aims to accelerate the adoption of AI applications, looking at achieving the targets of the Dubai Economic Agenda D33 by adding AED 100 billion, 27.2 billion dollars, yearly to the emirate’s economy and boosting productivity by 50 per cent through the adoption of digital solutions.

GITEX GLOBAL 2024: A Powerful Platform for AI Experts and Leaders

As the world’s largest tech and start-up event, GITEX GLOBAL is firmly aligned with the widely recognized UAE AI-driven economy, with Dubai as the fastest-growing international hub for AI experts, leaders, academics, and top voices in the industry.

Headliners include the most powerful tech giants driving AI dynamics globally, such as Adobe, Alibaba Cloud, AWS, Builder AI, Dell, G42, Google, HPE, IBM, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Open AI, and Oracle, among many others. Middle East’s premier companies and organisations advancing AI and projecting the region’s native tech to the world, such as Presight, e&, Technology Innovation Institute (TII), and Khazna, will also present their products and innovations at the show.

A premier lineup of international speakers will join the stage for thought-provoking discussions in AI, featuring names such as Isabell Gradert, VP of Central Research and Technology at Airbus (Germany), Michael Spranger, President of Sony AI (Japan), Axel Voss, Member of the European Parliament (Belgium), Stephen Ibaraki, Founder of the UN/ITU AI for Good (Canada), Jong-Soo Choi, CTO of Samsung (South Korea), and Dr Priya Singhal, EVP of Biogen (USA).

GITEX GLOBAL has announced the launch of GITEX DIGI_HEALTH 5.0 Expo-Summit Asia in Thailand, from 10-12 September 2025, in a destination touted with one of the highest potentials to leapfrog the healthcare industry with breakthrough technologies against increase in treatment affordability, demand for specialized treatments abroad and advanced medical diagnostics.

GITEX DIGI_HEALTH 5.0 Expo-Summit Asia, organised by KAOUN International, the international affiliate of Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC), shall host this most anticipated Summit and Expo alongside MEDICAL FAIR THAILAND by Messe Düsseldorf Asia. MEDICAL FAIR THAILAND is Thailand’s largest and most comprehensive medical and healthcare event.

On the sidelines of MEDICAL FAIR ASIA 2024 taking place this week in Singapore, Gernot Ringling, Managing Director, Messe Düsseldorf Asia, and Trixie LohMirmand, Chief Executive Officer of KAOUN International and Executive Vice President of DWTC, made the official announcement of this game-changing industry approach. This announcement of expanded strategic partnership between the world’s two most influential brands in tech and healthcare comes shortly after their recent agreement to execute the twin-approach intended to double down the transformation of the medical industry in Asia.
 
Dubai World Trade Centre / KAOUN International and Messe Dusseldorf Asia shall now jointly run both the MEDICAL FAIR and GITEX DIGI_HEALTH 5.0 Expo-Summit Asia as twin-events to leverage the global opportunities and fully serve the healthcare industries in both Singapore and Thailand.

Trixie LohMirmand, CEO of KAOUN International, organiser of GITEX worldwide, emphasized the significance of this colocation, stating: “The digital health market in Southeast Asia is rapidly becoming a key driver of economic growth and innovation. Through our strategic partnership with Messe Düsseldorf Asia, we are uninhibited to build new capacities and centres of digital excellence in delivering a new digital healthcare economy. The world’s most powerful brands in tech and medical care unified in the mission to fast forward the digitalization of the healthcare industry is a great first step towards creating the most empowering centre of excellence.”

Gernot Ringling, Managing Director, Messe Düsseldorf Asia, organizer of MEDICAL FAIR ASIA, said: “Bringing GITEX DIGI_HEALTH 5.0 from Singapore and then to Thailand next year is a strategic move that capitalises on Thailand’s rapid growth as a global medical tourism hub. Extending this footprint into Thailand allows us to tap into Thailand’s unique healthcare ecosystem and growing demand for digital health innovations, creating a powerful platform for transformative industry collaborations. With the combined strengths of Singapore’s tech leadership and Thailand’s healthcare excellence, we are poised to deliver an event that will significantly advance Southeast Asia’s digital health landscape.”

This strategic collaboration between MEDICAL FAIR THAILAND and GITEX in the health and medical sector will converge the ecosystem of government leaders, global healthcare practitioners, digital experts, investors, policy-makers, startups, and researchers to explore the disruptive impact of AI and digitalization in advancing healthcare.

The inaugural 2025 edition of GITEX DIGI_HEALTH 5.0 Expo-Summit Asia in Thailand will expand on these synergies, showcasing groundbreaking health tech solutions and serving as a powerful inclusive platform to foster meaningful collaborations, accelerating the growth of the digital health industry in Southeast Asia.

With only two months remaining until GITEX Global 2024, organisers have revealed a host of new industry programmes, cybersecurity experts, as well keynote speakers from world-leading brands confirmed for this year’s edition, running from 14-18 October at Dubai World Trade Centre.

Here’s the lowdown on what’s new so far in 2024:

GITEX Editions 2024

Aligned with Dubai’s ambition to be the home of 30 start-up unicorns by 2030, GITEX Global 2024 is launching GITEX Editions created to accelerate scale and global governance for high-growth companies. The early confirmed speaker line-up includes 8 fast-growing start-ups from 8 countries, 3 backed by the European Innovation Council (EIC).

AI: Fabrizio del Maffeo, Co-Founder, CEO & Board Member, Axelera AI (Netherlands)

An expert in developing Gen AI infrastructure and edge computing. Growing with a purpose of becoming the ‘European NVIDIA’, Axelera AI are backed by Samsung and the EIC. Valued at $500M, GITEX Global will mark its first ever Middle East presence.

Synthetic Biotech: Dr. Alexander Zhavoronkov, Founder and CEO, InSilico Medicine (Hong Kong)

Leading the biotech company with the world’s fastest-ever IPO and currently valued at $1.5B, he will discuss groundbreaking advancements in AI-driven drug discovery, synthetic biology, and ageing.

Sustainability Biotech: Dr. Mazen Rizk, Founder and CEO, Infinite Roots (Germany)

EU’s largest mycelium-biotech investment, building next-generation sustainable alternative proteins. A Series B funded company backed by the EIC.

Quantum Deeptech: Dr. Joseph Fitzsimons, Founder and CEO, Horizon Quantum Computing (Singapore)

Singapore’s biggest Quantum startup, backed by SG Innovate, Sequoia and Tencent.

Semiconductor Deeptech: Dr. Sunghyun Park, Founder and CEO, Rebellions (South Korea)

Set to become Korea’s first AI Semiconductor Chip Unicorn with a $1.5B value, acquired Sapeon AI.

Auto tech: Svilen Rangelov, Co-Founder and CEO, Dronamics (UK)

World’s first cargo drone airline on a mission to change e-commerce worldwide, part of the EIC scaling club.

Emilio Scervo, Chief Technology Officer and Board Member, Buggati – Rimac (Croatia)

World’s fastest hypercars. Valued at $5 billion, they are the first and fastest-growing Croatian Unicorn.

Semiconductor Supercomputing: Philippe Notton, Founder and CEO, SiPearl (France)

High performance semiconductor manufacturer for AI interfaces and supercomputing aiming for the technological sovereignty of Europe.

Cybersecurity Conference Programme

GITEX Global 2024 will see Cybersecurity taking centre stage with true stories from the trenches, AI-driven live hacks and fierce CISO debates. Making their debut at the world’s largest tech event is Chenxi Wang, Managing General Partner of Fortune 500 fund RainCapital (US), and Ekaterina Serban, Vice President of Privacy and Information Security at Bosch (Germany), the world’s largest automotive and services supplier.

Named as a top international cyber investor in the world by Fortune magazine, Wang will join global VCs and investment partners on stage to address the driving forces behind the rising global interest of businesses to increasingly invest in advanced security solutions and the surge in M&A activity within the cybersecurity sector. On another must-see panel discussion, Serban will take part on the conversation with CISOs and CIOs around corporate board engagement strategies for cybersecurity adoption.

New Industry Experts on Stage in 2024

For the very first time, Michael Spranger, the president of Sony AI Inc. will be addressing delegates from 180 countries at GITEX Global 2024, revealing the latest projects underway at Sony’s strategic research and development organisation.

Also debuting will be Chris Duffey, Futurist & Head of GenStudio, Adobe, USA who co-authored the world’s first book on AI, with AI. Adobe has been highly instrumental in driving Gen AI to help creators.

Isabell Gradert, VP Central Research & Technology for Airbus in Germany, will also be making her first regional appearance at the world’s largest tech and start-up event.

Sponsor Announced: Tech Destination Pakistan

Following its presence in the Pakistan Pavilion in previous GITEX Global editions, Tech Destination Pakistan, represented by Pakistan Software Export Board, has this year been declared the 2024 event’s ‘Tech Destination of the Year’. Shaza Fatima Khawaja, Minister of State for IT & Telecommunication, said of the announcement:

“This partnership highlights our commitment to innovation, technology and global collaboration. We look forward to showcasing Pakistan’s brilliant tech talent and tremendous potential in this prestigious platform.”