Masdar City, the UAE's sustainable urban development, is poised to play a critical part in the global green rebound from COVID-19, as it continues to attract sustainability-focused innovation and technology firms.

The number of firms in Masdar City's Freezone rose by 26% in 2020, demonstrating the City's importance and offers to innovative companies like G42 Healthcare, whose research labs and testing centers were critical to the UAE's pandemic response.

The numbers highlight the critical importance of innovation in advancing the green transition through the development and commercialization of innovative technologies. Masdar City in Abu Dhabi's only planned and sanctioned R&D cluster, but it is currently home to over 900 firms spanning from multinationals to SMEs to indigenous startups. These businesses are creating cutting-edge technology solutions to many of the world's most critical environmental issues in major industries such as energy, water, artificial intelligence, health, space, agriculture, and transportation.

“The UAE government has a long history of proactive climate action and recognizes the critical role that innovation plays in accelerating the global green regeneration,” said Abdulla Balalaa, Executive Director of Masdar City.

“The COVID-19 epidemic has highlighted the linkages among public health and climate change even more. We recognize the crucial necessity of green recovery more than ever. This is the only path ahead for driving sustainable development, and supporting innovation in important industries is a critical component of this journey, which Masdar City is contributing to lead.

“The UAE also has a National Strategy for Advanced Innovation in place, which is aimed at developing creative solutions in the fields of health, transportation, water, the environment, and space technology. This ambition is at the core of Masdar, and it is the reason that Masdar City was created as a "green print" for sustainable urban living and also a center for R&D, innovation, and technology.

“The work that is being done by Masdar City enterprises to create transformational technologies is not only preparing for the future but also creating it while assisting the UAE's aim of promoting sustainable and constructive change,” Balalaa said.

Given the struggles posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Masdar City has continued to welcome new partners, such as high-tech sector drivers, the Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), which structures Abu Dhabi's R&D strategy along with its pillar entities, the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), and ASPIRE, and would also continue to welcome regional and global partners in the months ahead.

The ATRC joins an already remarkable cluster of innovation-driven companies, includes:

Honeywell Innovation Centre, an innovation and knowledge-exchange hub aimed at advancing digital transformation across the oil, gas, petrochemical, and infrastructure sectors; G42 Healthcare, which initiated the first pan-Arab clinical trials for an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine but has established the country's largest and most advanced Omics Centre of Excellence, which would be home to a number of Omics projects; the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) - the Middle East's first intergovernmental organization.

The UAE Space Agency, which created history earlier this year by sending a spacecraft into Mars' orbit, creating UAE the first Arab country and one of only five countries in the world to do so; the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (Enec); and businesses such as Siemens, Siemens Energy, Saint-Gobain, and Tabreed, and core tenant Masdar (Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company).

Masdar City is also an enthusiastic supporter of the UAE's National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2031, which recognizes the development potential of AI and aims to establish the kingdom as an incubator for AI innovation. This year, Masdar City greeted the first students to the Mohammed Bin Zayed Institution of Artificial Intelligence, the world's first graduate-level, the research-based university devoted to the study of AI (MBZUAI).

Masdar City is also home to a rising number of AI specialized firms, which are expected to improve the world economy by $15.7 trillion by 2030 and the Middle East economy by $320 billion. Masdar City, which has already established itself as a major innovation center in the region, shall continue to promote solutions in critical areas, assisting the UAE's industrial sector in boosting its contribution to GDP to Dhs300 billion by 2031.

“The UAE has plans in place to assist the growth of industrial small-to-medium enterprises, allowing them to play a larger part in the country's transformation to a knowledge-based economy. The City offers a very extraordinary offering that combines education, R&D, technology, and innovation, all within a strategic basis where firms can test innovations and establish partnerships,” Balalaa noted.

Masdar City places a strong emphasis on the creation of new companies.