The UAE has instituted the AI Ecosystem for Global Agricultural Development, an initiative designed to equip climate-affected farmers with advanced, data-driven solutions. The project will focus on assisting climate-exposed agricultural regions in adapting to rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, and increasing uncertainty in growing conditions.
The ecosystem will focus on delivering AI-driven digital advisory services for farmers, open-source agricultural AI models, support for crop planning and climate-resilience strategies, and technology deployment in vulnerable regions across Africa, South Asia, and parts of the Middle East. Its goal is to make high-impact digital tools accessible to communities that traditionally lack the resources to adopt emerging technologies.
Through our partnership with the Gates Foundation, we are advancing Agri-AI solutions that support millions of smallholder farmers facing unpredictable weather, helping secure a more stable and hopeful future for communities worldwide.
The initiative is structured as a unified effort that brings together key institutions from the UAE and abroad, including the International Affairs Office at the UAE Presidential Court, Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), NYU Abu Dhabi, ai71, Gates Foundation, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the World Bank Group.
The announcement was made in Abu Dhabi in the presence of Mariam Almheiri, Head of the International Affairs Office at the UAE Presidential Court, and Bill Gates, Chair of the Gates Foundation.
AI Ecosystem Projects
The initiative is an extension of $200 million UAE-Gates Foundation partnership announced at COP28, which was designed to accelerate global agricultural innovation and support food systems under pressure from climate volatility. The project is aimed at transforming scientific research and AI capabilities into practical tools for use in fields, providing farmers with real-time insights, digital advisory services, and access to open-source agricultural AI models.
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Under this initiative, four AI agricultural projects will be instituted to connect advanced AI research with the needs of policymakers, governments, and farmers in regions most vulnerable to climate impacts. The CGIAR AI Hub will be established in Abu Dhabi in partnership with ai71, a firm that develops and implements multi-domain AI solutions for enterprises and governments.
Additionally, AgriLLM, an open-source large language model developed by ai71 in Abu Dhabi, will be launched to advance global agricultural intelligence. The model is trained on deep agricultural data, including 150,000 agricultural documents, 50,000 research papers, and 120,000 real farming questions and answers, and is designed for multilingual understanding.
The Institute of Agriculture and Artificial Intelligence will be based at MBZUAI and will provide digital advisory services, training programmes, and technical assistance teams for both governments and non-governmental organisations. Lastly, Aim for Scale, jointly funded by the UAE and the Gates Foundation and based at NYU Abu Dhabi, will be constituted to deliver AI-powered weather forecasting and digital advisory services to smallholder farmers.
Data and Policy for Resilient Food Systems
UAE is applying artificial intelligence to assist farmers most vulnerable to climate shifts. Its approach connects national research strengths with global partners to turn scientific insights into practical, on ground solutions.
Around the world, smallholder farmers are facing the harshest impacts of climate change with the fewest tools to adapt. The AI for Agriculture Ecosystem helps change that by putting practical, data-driven solutions directly in farmers’ hands. I’m grateful for the UAE’s leadership: this initiative helps strengthen food security and support farmers in a warming world
Timothy Baldwin provost of MBZUAI noted that better use of existing agricultural data from crop yields and livestock records to weather and soil information can considerably improve farm productivity. He said much of this data is scattered across organisations, and its value increases when those pieces are connected. Baldwin added that MBZUAI aims to make this data accessible, build models, and support partners who can bring these tools to farmers. He said the university’s initial focus will be on agriculture in Africa, followed by parts of South Asia.
Fatema Al Mulla, a senior specialist at the International Affairs Office of the UAE Presidential Court, said the UAE is positioning itself to play a constructive role in addressing climate impacts on food systems. She noted that the country’s long history with food security enables it to contribute at a time when some nations are scaling back development efforts.
Al Mulla added that the new ecosystem allows international organisations to use Abu Dhabi as a base for developing AI tools that can be transferred to smallholder farmers. She highlighted that food systems account for a major share of global emissions and that reducing waste and hunger depends on practical solutions reaching the communities that need them most.