Category: 3. Business

An article by Farid Yousefi, Founder and CEO of Founder Group AI

Artificial intelligence is accelerating across the GCC at a pace few regions can match. Government vision, large-scale investment and a clear mandate for economic diversification have positioned Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman as early global leaders in AI adoption.

Across the region, governments are pouring billions into infrastructure, cloud capacity and data centres to power the next wave of AI-driven industries. Abu Dhabi’s G42 continues to secure major international partnerships. Saudi Arabia’s HUMAIN is building extensive AI data centre capabilities. Qatar is expanding its AI-enabled cloud services. These supply-side investments show a clear determination to embed AI into the region’s economic fabric.

AI is also central to long-term national strategies such as Saudi Vision 2030 and the UAE’s National AI Strategy 2031. For policymakers, AI is not simply a productivity tool. It is a catalyst for new sectors across healthcare, logistics, fintech, and energy optimisation — all seen as pillars of future economic diversification.

What investors want as 2026 approaches

Against this backdrop, opportunities for AI innovators continue to grow—but the bar for investment is rising. As 2026 nears, investors will prioritise founders who can move beyond building “AI features” and instead create full AI narratives supported by measurable ROI, capital-efficient models, and real go-to-market execution.

Simply put, the winners will be those who turn intelligence into economic value:

• automation that reduces cost
• prediction that increases revenue
• platforms that scale with lean teams and modular architectures

A clearer sign of this shift can be seen in the growing number of AI-driven models emerging in sectors like real estate, where companies are using automation, predictive insights and workflow optimisation to shorten transaction cycles. The recent joint venture between a UAE brokerage and the AI platform AIR reflects this broader trend: AI is being deployed not to replace industry professionals, but to enhance the speed, accuracy and efficiency of their work. It’s this type of practical, ROI-focused application—not speculative or experimental use cases— that is increasingly gaining investor attention.

From testing tools to systems enterprises rely on

There is no doubt that AI in the GCC is transitioning from tools we experiment with to systems enterprises depend on daily. The mainstream foundations will include:

• agentic AI that can take actions, not just generate answers
• autonomous workflow orchestration inside enterprises
• real-time predictive intelligence built on multimodal data
• AI avatars for customer engagement, education and support

Finance, government, retail, logistics and energy will all accelerate adoptions as these capabilities mature.

For innovators, this means building AI that assumes real operational responsibility — not simply another feature layered on top of existing workflows. Enterprises across the GCC want solutions that take on specific processes end-to-end and deliver immediate, measurable impact. Products that focus on a single high-value use case and execute it deeply and reliably will earn both enterprise adoption and investor attention.

The rise of agentic AI ecosystems

The defining shift in 2026 will be the rise of agentic AI ecosystems: systems that can plan, decide and act across entire business processes. This will push digital transformation from “digitising workflows” to genuinely intelligent operations.

Enterprises will move toward a dual-intelligence model — humans setting direction, AI executing with precision. This balance will reshape how organisations recruit, produce, innovate, and interact with customers.

As agentic AI becomes the operating layer inside enterprises, innovators will need to design products that integrate seamlessly into autonomous workflows. This means:

• modular, API-first architectures
• real-time data pipelines for AI agents
• embedded predictive and autonomous actions
• enterprise-grade transparency, control and governance
• Products that can be orchestrated by AI — not only humans — will become the new winners of digital transformation.
• A regional mindset ready for acceleration

The GCC’s advantage is not just technical investment but mindset. Governments, regulators and enterprises are ready to adopt AI faster than almost any other region. This openness to change creates a rare environment where AI solutions can scale rapidly and prove commercial value in real operational settings.

The real winners in 2026 will be the innovators who build AI products with clear purpose, deep local relevance and real global scalability. In a region moving at this speed, the opportunity is enormous — but so is the expectation for founders to build responsibly, efficiently and with focus.

Leveraging the Per Diem 2.0 Tool, we extracted prices for a basket of goods and standardized them by converting local currencies to USD for accurate cross-location comparisons. The analysis focuses on popular expatriate locations, offering insight into the typical expenses and shopping habits of global assignees. The locations include Beijing, Berlin, Dakar, Dubai, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Mumbai, Nairobi, New York, Paris, Rome, São Paulo, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto and Warsaw.

By P.R. Venkat

  China-backed MMG and Anglo American have agreed to extend the deadline to complete the purchase of the latter's Brazilian nickel business after the European Commission extended its review of the proposed acquisition. 

  "It is unclear how long the European Commission may require to complete its review," MMG said Monday. 

  MMG, majority-owned by China Minmetals, and Anglo American have agreed to extend the deadline for completing the share purchase agreement from Nov. 18 to June 30, 2026. 

  While all the other conditions have been satisfied, the European Commission has escalated its review to a Phase II investigation, MMG said. 

  In early November, the European Commission had said it would deepen its investigation into MMG's $500 million purchase of Anglo American's Brazilian nickel business, citing competition concerns. 

  The commission had said it had preliminary concerns that the deal could divert ferronickel supplies from European markets, potentially raising prices and reducing the quality of stainless steel production in the bloc. 

  Anglo American announced in February that it would sell its Brazilian nickel business to MMG, as part of the U.K.-listed company's efforts to simplify operations following a failed takeover bid from rival BHP last year. 

  "MMG will continue to work with Anglo-American and the European Commission to assist the European Commission in its review," MMG said Monday. 

  Write to P.R. Venkat at venkat.pr@wsj.com 

  (END) Dow Jones Newswires

  November 23, 2025 20:11 ET (01:11 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

While Woodside has secured a widely criticised extension to its North West Shelf (NWS) liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, its development of the Browse offshore gas field – vital to the NWS’s long-term viability – is looking increasingly shaky. 

The Australian government’s recent decision to extend the licence of the NWS plant to 2070 has generated considerable controversy. Proponents of the project argue that it is needed to ensure energy security at home and in Asia, while opponents point to its large emissions and its impacts on the culturally significant Murujuga rock art nearby. Remarkably, the United Nations has joined legal action against the Government’s decision.

Less focus has been given to Woodside’s proposed Browse gas project, located almost 300km offshore in deep waters. Browse is intended to backfill the NWS as supply from existing fields declines. Having been granted the NWS extension, Woodside is now pursuing approval for Browse. However, the Browse project faces mounting uncertainty given its high costs, developments in LNG markets, and emissions reduction requirements for Woodside. 

There are two major hurdles that Woodside will need to address if it is to develop the Browse field. 

The first is cost. Browse gas will likely be expensive, making it relatively uncompetitive in both the Western Australian gas market and in international LNG markets. IEEFA estimates that Woodside will need a gas price of AUD7.80/GJ to break even on the Browse component of the project.

In terms of LNG exports, this would mean a cost of close to USD8/MMBtu delivered to North Asia (accounting for additional LNG costs). This is well above Qatar’s marginal delivered LNG costs of about USD3.80-5.80/MMBtu, notable given Qatar is a major competitor with Australia and will have large volumes of LNG to sell in coming years.

In terms of the domestic market, this would mean a cost of about AUD9/GJ to deliver Browse gas to Perth. It is about four times higher than the current average production cost of domestic gas in Western Australia, and above current WA gas spot prices. This means Browse gas could potentially place upward pressure on WA gas prices, to levels above the minimum prices that the Australian Energy Market Operator anticipates will induce demand destruction in the Western Australian gas market. The alternative is for Woodside to sell below cost to the domestic market, to the detriment of shareholder returns. 

Meanwhile, LNG markets are hurtling towards a supply glut that will depress prices and intensify competition. While the LNG industry generally expects long-term demand growth to absorb new supply, there are emerging concerns that the LNG glut will persist. For instance, the CEO of TotalEnergies, a major LNG trader, highlighted concerns that the glut could last for years if all planned US LNG projects come online (even as TotalEnergies is progressing with its own US LNG investments). 

Future demand is also uncertain. LNG demand is falling or set to fall in traditional markets, and growth in price-sensitive emerging markets faces structural barriers. The International Group of Liquefied Natural Gas Importers recently pointed to LNG demand uncertainty due to energy demand growth (particularly in Asia) on one side, and emissions reduction targets and growing renewable energy on the other. 

The second hurdle is emissions. The government’s NWS approval includes additional, specific requirements for Woodside to reduce NWS emissions by 60% to 2030, and to net zero by 2050, as well as obligations to reduce or eliminate emissions of certain gases (such as nitrous oxide). The Browse gas fields are also estimated to have a high carbon dioxide (CO₂) content of 10%. Under current rules, this must be fully offset from day one, adding to the requirement to reduce emissions from the NWS plant itself.

The NWS requirements may make it uneconomic to keep the two older trains onlineor at a minimum add significant costs to upgrade them. This could leave only two newer trains, as one train is already offline, thereby reducing LNG production and revenue, and further weakening the economic case for the Browse project.

Woodside has flagged the establishment of a carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility to address reservoir emissions, with planning documents suggesting the facility will capture about 3-4 million tonnes of CO₂ per year (just under half of Browse’s total emissions), with Woodside likely relying on carbon credits to offset reservoir emissions not captured by CCS under Australia’s Safeguard Mechanism. 

However, CCS projects are expensive and typically underperform or fail altogether, with only a handful of sequestration-only facilities achieving carbon injection close to target. Chevron’s Gorgon facility has seen its carbon capture rates fall materially since it began operations, and in 2023-24 captured only 30% of its target. 

Underperformance of CCS facilities has implications for costs, both by increasing the cost of captured carbon (given that fixed project costs are spread over less captured CO₂), and by increasing the amount of offsets required. IEEFA previously estimated that Gorgon CCS had a cost of about AUD222 for each tonne of CO₂ captured due to its underperformance, well above contemporary carbon credit prices. 

In total, the Gorgon facility has cost AUD3.5 billion since its inception and is of a similar scale to the proposed Browse project (with Browse potentially facing additional costs as the facility is located offshore). CCS costs could therefore increase the costs of the AUD37 billion Browse project by about 9%.

Emissions abatement could potentially undermine the project’s competitiveness, both with rival gas sources, and for investment – particularly in the context of declining Australian LNG production. In its Net Zero Transformation modelling, the Australian Treasury has forecast declines in LNG production of 27% to 2035 and 67% to 2050. 

With potentially high project costs and emissions, increasing competition and uncertain demand in LNG markets, Woodside may face an uphill battle convincing investors that Browse is a sound investment. Despite the controversy, the government’s NWS approval may not mean much if Woodside cannot make that case. 
 

This article was first published in Energy News Bulletin. 

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