OpenAI CEO Sam Altman & G42 Group CEO Peng Xiao discuss future AI-Native Societies at GITEX GLOBAL 2025

• GITEX & G42 AI-Native Societies Programme dominates Day 2 agenda at DWTC with thought-provoking series of discussions and industry briefings
• Participating virtually, Altman joined Peng to share insights on their collaboration, UAE’s vision on AI and the importance of partnerships in shaping nation-scale AI

Dubai, UAE - 14 October 2025: AI-native societies could entirely redefine human progress, enabling hyper-efficient systems, data-driven equity, and sustainable innovation through which future generations prosper and thrive. Given its unprecedented potential, GITEX GLOBAL 2025 – the world’s largest tech and AI event – cast a spotlight on the opportunities ahead, previewing a future where national governance, economies, and societies are powered by intelligent systems.

Taking place at Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) until 17 October 2025, GITEX GLOBAL convenes over 6,800 tech enterprises and 2,000 startups from 180 countries to advance AI infrastructure, accelerate frontier innovation, promote international policy dialogue, and champion responsible development.

Harnessing Multiplied Einstein-Level Brainpower to Transform Societies

In one of the most anticipated moments of the week, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, joined Peng Xiao, Group CEO of G42, virtually to discuss “From Early Adoption to AI-Native Societies: Envisioning the Next Era of Intelligence.” Their conversation, part of the GITEX & G42 AI-Native Societies Programme, explored how countries can design equitable, data-driven, and sustainable futures built on artificial intelligence, and how the UAE is setting a global benchmark in such initiatives.

Altman hailed the UAE’s vision, commenting: “Every country will need an AI strategy – this has to be a top priority for national leaderships, and the UAE’s leadership on this has been incredible to see. I hope this serves as an example for the rest of the world – of what it looks like for a forward-thinking country to really embrace AI and say this is going to be an important part of our future.  We are honoured to be a partner for that.”

Altman’s remarks followed the recent announcement of OpenAI for Countries, a new initiative to help governments build sovereign AI infrastructure. With the UAE the first partner under the initiative, Peng elaborated on the joint efforts to unleash the project’s full potential.

Elaborating on the inspiration behind OpenAI for Countries and its implications for the UAE, Peng stated: “You take this massive brainpower of a frontier model, which is already at the IQ level of Einstein – in fact, a collection of Einsteins – and begin to adapt that to serve the different layers of an entire society. We are mapping out how this frontier model can fill in the different functions required to serve an entire society – from the most basic needs of healthcare all the way to cybersecurity. This is no longer a technology initiative in which you buy a piece of software and deploy it for a specific need – this is a new, powerful super-utility whose potential can only be unleashed when you imagine big – when you think big – at a societal scale. Our engineers at G42 and OpenAI are working around the world right now to take this super-utility that we call the Intelligence Grid and apply it at a societal level here in the UAE.”

Uniting The World for an Equitable, Open AI-Native Society

While underscoring the need for open, equitable AI deployment, Altman stated: “I think to avoid the AI divide, we must make AI open and teach people how to use it – to make it available everywhere, and have every country embrace it. The UAE has been a wonderful partner for showing the world what’s possible here. This is the kind of partnership that brings the entire global economy together, with many companies at many levels of the stack, many countries all together.”

Peng discussed the four critical success factors for AI-native societies, revealing: “There are four major factors for nations to be AI-native. First and foremost, strong political leadership is essential. For a government that wants to be AI-native, AI cannot be one of the top 10 or top 20 priorities, it needs to be top three – maybe even first – on a government’s agenda. Second, educating the population and entire society is essential, and thirdly, building the required infrastructure is imperative. Finally, the fourth factor for success is global partnerships. No country, no company, no individual can do this alone. And this is why we’re here sharing the stage with Sam – as one of our global partners.”

Microsoft & G42: Redefining Responsible AI Boundaries 

The day’s discussions extended to the foundations of this nation-scale AI infrastructure. Senior executives from OpenAI, G42, Microsoft, Core42, the US-UAE Business Council, Cisco, Oracle, Khazna Data Centres, and Cerebras, unveiled insights on the Global Intelligence Grid.

Amr Kamel, General Manager of Microsoft UAE, noted, “Scale is a very important principle for us and we have several pillars when we think about our partnership with G42 and the UAE. One is how we are enabling the backbone of cloud in a very scalable way that can empower digital transformation and AI across the region. Secondly, building on sovereignty. Through partnerships, we are building a sovereign capability for the cloud – in a way that enables governments to embrace and accelerate the adoption of AI.

“There’s also the responsible AI element. We need to ensure AI is not a technology for a few, it's a technology that is driven by inclusion and that we are democratizing access to AI across the board, something that everybody can benefit from.”

AGI: A Multi-Company, Multi-Government Undertaking

The dialogues continued with Dr. Andrew Jackson, Group Chief AI Officer at G42, addressing the theme “Alliances that shape the future: Inside the Stargate UAE partnership network”.

Dr. Jackson said: “Stargate UAE is a huge endeavour, beginning with a five-gigawatt campus. G42 serves as the orchestrator, building and owning much of the physical infrastructure. That infrastructure must then be equipped with technology: Oracle provides cloud systems, Cisco supplies networking gear, and OpenAI brings its platform and models. There are many other partners that are going to be part of this as well – it’s a huge endeavour, and we need all the partners we can get.”

Another industry leader part of the expert panel was OpenAI’s Rod Solaimani, Head of Policy and Partnerships for the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia. Joined by Mohannad Abuissa, Cisco's Director of Solutions Engineering and CTO for MEA-TRC; and Mohamed Taha Benssiba, Head of AI for the Middle East and Africa at Oracle, Solaimani discussed Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) – a system capable of reasoning, learning, and creating across any domain with human-level understanding.

Solaimani share: “The UAE has really been the thought partner that’s allowed us to build on this idea of how AGI can benefit all of humanity. From Stargate to OpenAI for Countries – it’s about taking that technology and making it accessible, impactful, and meaningful in people’s lives. AGI should benefit all of humanity – but for many countries, there’s a phrase, ‘infrastructure is destiny’. We can’t do it as one company, or even as a group of companies. Because AGI has become a multi-company, multi-government undertaking.”

AI Transforming Education, But Not Replacing Human-to-Human Communication

AI’s role in transforming education systems was one of the many pressing topics analysed, from personalised learning and automated curriculum design to preparing future talent for AI economies. During the session titled “Reimagining Education”, Professor Ekaterina Kochmar from the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) revealed how AI tools are empowering teachers while creating greater human connections.

Professor Kochmar elaborated: “AI is here to help humans. It’s here to help students, help teachers – and we are not building it to replace educators. Communication on a human-to-human level is very important because this creates a very productive, collaborative environment where we can introduce AI tools into the everyday lives of teachers and students.”

The GITEX GLOBAL conference programme converges its largest, most formidable lineup of ministers, policymakers, tech CEOs, founders, and investors, spanning multiple summits on AI geopolitics & sovereignty, quantum frontiers, cross-sector use cases, investment priorities, and cyber resilience in the age of AI.

For more information, please visit: www.gitex.com.