UAE: OpenAI launches local data residency; 6 in 10 young residents use ChatGPT weekly

AI adoption in the UAE continues to accelerate, with OpenAI reporting that its user base in the country has tripled over the past year. About 60% of residents aged 18–24 and half of those aged 25–34 use ChatGPT every week, the company said.

Amid this rising demand, OpenAI announced the expansion of its data residency options to the UAE, allowing business and education customers to store data within the country. The feature is now available for organisations using ChatGPT Enterprise, ChatGPT Edu and OpenAI’s API platform.

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The feature enables businesses, public-sector entities and education providers to meet national compliance, governance and operational requirements as they scale the use of AI.

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Enterprise uptake is also rising. UAE organisations including G42, Mubadala, Abu Dhabi Investment Council, Aldar, MBZUAI, Khalifa University, NYU Abu Dhabi, Higher Colleges of Technology, United Arab Emirates University and Tabby are deploying OpenAI technologies to support productivity, research and national AI goals under the UAE Vision 2031 strategy.

Farouk El Hamzawi, Head of Enterprise for OpenAI MENA, said the UAE’s AI adoption is advancing at a “remarkable pace,” backed by a clear long-term national strategy. He said the new data-residency option provides institutions with “greater choice and confidence as they build with AI.”

The launch follows OpenAI’s announcement earlier this year of Stargate UAE, a data-centre cluster developed with the UAE Government, G42, Oracle, NVIDIA, Cisco and SoftBank to support the country’s long-term infrastructure needs.

OpenAI said the UAE data-residency feature upholds its enterprise-grade security commitments, including encryption of data at rest and in transit, default exclusion of enterprise and API customer data from model training, and configurable retention policies supported by a Data Processing Addendum.

Sahim Salim

Staff Writer

• 

sahim@khaleejtimes.com

As Associate Editor, Sahim Salim helps tell the UAE story like no one else does — and leads a team of reporters that asks the questions to get news and headlines that matter.