'Cheap land, low taxes': Dubai can be the next Silicon Valley, says renowned futurist

Dubai has all the ingredients such as cheap land, low taxation and ease of doing business to become the Silicon Valley of the 21st century, said a world-renowned futurologist.

World-renowned futurologist and science writer Dr Michio Kaku, who grew up in Silicon Valley, pointed out that there are quite a lot of similarities between Dubai and Silicon Valley, which is home to many of the world’s largest technology companies.

“When I come from Dubai, I'm very much reminded of my childhood. I grew up in Silicon Valley. When I look at the ingredients that made Silicon Valley possible, they’re cheap land, low taxation, lots of graduate students, easy to start a company, easy to fail, but easy to succeed as well. That's the way when you want to innovate when you want to be creative,” Dr Kaku told Khaleej Times on the sidelines of a summit on Wednesday.

Currently, as per Knight Frank data, property prices in Dubai are among the cheapest in the world when compared to cities like London, Hong Kong, New York, Paris etc. Similarly, Dubai has one of the lowest tax rates and costs to start a business. In addition, new visa regimes, such as the 10-year Golden, has made the emirate even more attractive for entrepreneurs.

“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how Silicon Valley was formed. But to reproduce that in other places of the world is difficult. But here in Dubai, I see tremendous progress. Because there is a spirit of innovation, creativity and new industries being created from nothing. I think that kind of ethic is what makes success possible in the computer age,” the renowned scientist said on the sidelines of the Re-Imagine 2023 summit organised by technology firm Redington.

“Dubai can be [an] even greater Silicon Valley of the 21st century because it also has a financial sector, large entertainment and recreation sectors; [it's] more than just a place to build computers,” added Dr Kaku.

He pointed out that to be creative and do something out of the box, people have to take risks. “In Japan, for example, taking risks is in their spirit. In Silicon Valley, when you give an interview for a job, one of the questions they ask is how often you failed because failure is a part of the fabric of success and that attitude you don’t find in many places.”

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