Abu Dhabi is accelerating its aim to become a global hub for deep technology, and at the centre of this effort is VentureOne, a government-backed venture builder turning cutting-edge research into market-ready startups.
In just 18 months, it has launched four deep-tech companies, a pace that underscores how the UAE’s coordinated approach to innovation is reshaping the journey from laboratory breakthroughs to commercial success.
That pace is no coincidence. VentureOne sits within the Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), alongside Aspire, which identifies real-world challenges, and the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), which develops the technology to solve them. VentureOne then takes those breakthroughs and turns them into commercial ventures.
“Our pace comes from having a fully integrated innovation ecosystem under ATRC,” says Reda Nidhakou, CEO of VentureOne. “This pipeline minimises fragmentation and accelerates the journey from lab to market. Early internal funding gives each startup room to validate its technology and hire as needed, ensuring both speed and quality.”
The approach reflects a broader national ambition to make the UAE not only a consumer of global technology but also a creator of it. By linking research, innovation and commercialisation under one umbrella, Abu Dhabi has built a model designed to deliver homegrown, high-impact startups at scale.
Unlike traditional incubators, VentureOne doesn’t chase trends, it focuses on solving critical challenges. “We don’t choose sectors, we choose problems,” says Nidhakou. That has led to ventures in AI, autonomous robotics, post-quantum cyber security and climate technology – fields that often require heavy R&D and long-term vision but deliver transformational value once commercialised.
The process starts with Aspire, which collaborates with government entities, industry leaders and end-users to select problems worth solving. TII’s researchers then develop prototypes or proofs of concept, and VentureOne steps in to evaluate scalability, pilot with clients and design viable business models.
“This demand-led, data-driven model replaces speculation with validation,” Nidhakou says. “It dramatically increases our chances of delivering measurable, real-world impact.”
“Early internal funding gives each startup room to validate its technology and hire as needed, ensuring both speed and quality”
Reda Nidhakou, VentureOne
A major differentiator in Abu Dhabi’s model is talent. VentureOne has successfully attracted researchers and engineers from global tech giants such as Google, DeepMind, Meta, and Microsoft. According to Nidhakou, this is about more than competitive salaries or quality of life: “At ATRC, people get to build something valuable from start to finish. They work on high-impact challenges and see their innovations deployed. That sense of purpose is deeply motivating.”
Supporting this ecosystem is the UAE’s agile regulatory framework and unified innovation agenda. Government-backed funding reduces early-stage risk, while clear pathways to licensing and market entry make it easier for startups to grow.
“The government wants to export deep tech,” Nidhakou says. “They create an environment where technologies can be developed, validated and scaled rapidly.”
Of course, turning research into viable products is not without challenges. The toughest part, Nidhakou admits, is bridging the “last mile” between technical readiness and market deployment. Many prototypes fail because they aren’t designed for integration or compliance. VentureOne tackles this by embedding engineering and advisory teams alongside clients to co-develop scalable, market-ready solutions.
The results are already visible. Four startups have launched across multiple sectors, each addressing real-world problems with advanced technology and strategic market validation, and more are set to follow over the next year.
“We’re seeing great traction locally and internationally,” says Nidhakou. “VentureOne is helping position the UAE as a global hub for bold, high-impact deep-tech ventures. Our goal now is to keep the momentum and build a strong ecosystem of successful, homegrown companies.”
To mark the end of 2025, I was going to write about the amazing work of Francesca Bria and her colleagues who have created the fascinating and very informative website The authoritarian stack – How tech billionaires are building a post-democratic America and why Europe is next. The site outlines five domains of privatised sovereignty – data, defence, space, energy and money. In other words, the foundations of democratic power.
Bria suggests these domains “form the architecture of privatised sovereignty – a technological regime where power flows through laws, infrastructure and automated platforms”.
I was going to follow my analysis of The authoritarian stack with a counter-proposal referencing Bria and her colleagues on an alternative view of what the future could hold – titled, A European alternative for digital sovereignty.
According to Martin Hullin,director of the digitalisation and the common good programme at German non-profit foundation Bertelsmann Stiftung, this report maps a way forward, “Recognising that complete self-sufficiency is neither feasible nor desirable, the initiative calls instead for a shared effort to bolster strategic capabilities and cultivate beneficial international partnerships. It also seeks to demonstrate that digital sovereignty is not about isolation but about advancing a shared vision of the common good”.
Hullin invites us to “consider how this mapping and its recommendations can help spark innovations that are both competitive and compassionate… to build a future in which digitalisation serves not as a source of division but as a force for the common good.”
A way out of the mess
These are very important things. They are things you need to understand. They shine a light on a positive and meaningful way out of the mess we are in. They are things you should definitely read if you want to know what’s really going on in the world.
Imagine that – people somehow raising a newborn child without ChatGPT?
As a human who has actually had a baby, I can reassure all you anxious readers that not only has it been possible for us to do this, we’ve been doing it for centuries without the help of Sam Altman and ChatGPT.
Obviously before ChatGPT we understood that it takes “a village to raise a child” – our families, friends, communities, neighbours, teachers, civil society and amazingly our own innate instincts as well, or what we generally call “parents”. Now thank God all we will need is ChatGPT – how amazingly efficient. Er – thanks so much, Sam?
Incredibly Altman makes this statement while at the same time being comfortable with the contradictory statement he made in an earlier OpenAI podcast suggesting that people “have a very high degree of trust in ChatGPT, which is interesting because, like, AI hallucinates. It should be the tech that you don’t trust that much”.
So which is it Mr Altman? Should I trust something as important as raising my baby to you or not?
Of course, of note and utterly predictable is the help Altman actually asked ChatGPT for in relation to his baby. Turns out it’s all about competitive advantage. He met another tech bro at a party who had a child the same age as his own. His colleague mentioned that his child was crawling at six months. Altman’s, on the other hand, was not.
When the AI bubble bursts – and it will – it will take us all with it. That’s not a future I’d wish for any child and it’s why we should be more worried about the impact of ChatGPT on our children than its ability to raise them
Fuelled with anxiety and envy at such extraordinary baby prowess, Altman raced home to ask ChatGPT if something was wrong and whether he should take his six-month old to the doctor to check his progress.
Here is what his machine told him: “Of course it’s normal, of course you don’t need to go to the doctor. You know parents do all these sorts of things. And, by the way, this is personalised – ChatGPT gets to know you. And, you know, you’re the CEO of OpenAI. You probably are around all these high-achieving people. Maybe you don’t want to project that onto your kid? And you should maybe just relax and he’ll be fine.”
A bro reassurance machine
Yup – that’s exactly the kind of reassurance I’d have been looking for when I was knee deep in nappies and formula. I’d really want to have been reassured that I’m doing fine ranking against my high-achieving colleagues, because really that’s what was top of my mind when I was a sleep-deprived, exhausted new mum trying to figure out how to get a buggy and all those baby supplies into the car on my own. Not to mention how would I push a shopping trolley around while also simultaneously managing the buggy? Clearly ChatGPT is more of a bro reassurance machine than Baby and child could ever have been.
But the most interesting thing about the Jimmy Kimmel interview was the audience reaction. As Altman makes his ridiculous statement, there is a ripple of quiet laughter, as if they are saying, “He is surely not claiming that ChatGPT can raise a child?” Then the laughter deepens as the audience begins to understand the ludicrous nature of that statement and that Altman actually believes it.
It’s a sound I’m hoping to hear lots more of in 2026 – the sound of venture capitalists, angel investors, technology journalists, mainstream journalists and responsible governments calling out the madness of the last three years and the insane claims from the broligarchy about the impact of AI.
It’s the sound of tech leaders taking responsibility for their impact on society, politics, democracy, our planet, our futures. Because when the AI bubble bursts – and it will – it will take us all with it. That’s not a future I’d wish for any child and it’s why we should be more worried about the impact of ChatGPT on our children than its ability to raise them. What it’s going to do to their future should be keeping us awake at night.
So here’s to a market correction in 2026 – and not only a market correction but one where we return to placing our trust for a brighter and sustainable future in the village that has served us so well for centuries, rather than the crazed and destructive visions of those underpinning The authoritarian stack. Surely our children deserve a more enlightened stewardship than that offered by AI?
My Christmas wish is that we have the wisdom to understand what AI can and cannot do – where it is useful and where it is destructive – so that we can protect our children from doomscrolling through the world under the stewardship of men whose political and doctrinal influences range from national conservatism, techno accelerationism, crypto-sovereignty, online radicalisation and tech militarism. It’s all there in the Stack, so you could read that or you could just gather your children close this Christmas and start thinking about and working towards a better vision for the world in 2026 for our deeply human children most of all.
OpenAI’s chief communications officer, Hannah Wong, announced internally on Monday that she is leaving the company in January, WIRED has learned. In a statement to WIRED, OpenAI spokesperson Kayla Wood confirmed the departure.
“Hannah has played a defining role in shaping how people understand OpenAI and the work we do,” said CEO Sam Altman and CEO of applications Fidji Simo in a joint statement. “She has an extraordinary ability to bring clarity to complex ideas, and to do it with care and grace. We’re deeply grateful for her leadership and partnership these last five years, and we wish her the very best.”
Wong joined OpenAI in 2021 when it was a relatively small research lab, and has led the company’s communications team as ChatGPT has grown into one of the world’s largest consumer products. She was considered instrumental in leading the company through the PR crisis that was Altman’s brief ouster and re-hiring in 2023—a period the company internally calls “the blip.” Wong assumed the chief communications officer role in August 2024, and has expanded the company’s communications team since then.
In a drafted LinkedIn post shared with WIRED, Wong said that OpenAI’s VP of communications, Lindsey Held, will lead the company’s communications team until a new chief communications officer is hired. OpenAI’s VP of marketing, Kate Rouch, is leading the search for Wong’s replacement.
“These years have been intense and deeply formative,” said Wong in the LinkedIn post. “I’m grateful I got to help tell OpenAI’s story, introduce ChatGPT and other incredible products to the world, and share more about the people forging the path to AGI during an extraordinary moment of growth and momentum.”
Wong says she looks forward to spending more time with her husband and kids as she figures out the next chapter in her career.
The UK government has launched a Women in Tech Taskforce, designed to dismantle the current barriers faced by women working in, or wanting to work in, the tech sector.
Made up of several experts from the technology ecosystem, the taskforce’s main aim is to boost economic growth, after the recent government-backed Lovelace report found the UK is suffering an annual loss of between £2bn and £3.5bn as a result of women leaving the tech sector or changing roles.
The UK’s technology secretary, Liz Kendall, said: “Technology should work for everyone. That is why I have established the Women in Tech Taskforce, to break down the barriers that still hold too many people back, and to partner with industry on practical solutions that make a real difference.
“This matters deeply to me. When women are inspired to take on a role in tech and have a seat at the table, the sector can make more representative decisions, build products that serve everyone, and unlock the innovation and growth our economy needs.”
The percentage of women in the technology workforce remains at around 22%, having grown marginally over the past five years, and the recent Lovelace report found between 40,000 and 60,000 women are leaving digital roles each year, whether for other tech roles or to leave tech for good.
When women are inspired to take on a role in tech and have a seat at the table, the sector can make more representative decisions, build products that serve everyone, and unlock the innovation and growth our economy needs Liz Kendall, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
There are many reasons for this, one being the lack of opportunity to advance their career in their current roles. Research by other organisations has found a lack of flexibility at work and bias also play a part in either preventing women from joining the sector or contributing to their decision to leave IT.
The issues can be traced all the way to school-aged girls, who often choose not to continue with technology subjects. One reason for this is that misconceptions about the skills needed for a tech role make young women feel the sector isn’t for them.
Headed up by the founder and CEO of Stemettes, Anne-Marie Imafidon, the founding members of the taskforce include:
Liz Kendall, secretary of state for science, innovation and technology.
Anne-Marie Imafidon, founder of Stemettes; Women in Tech Envoy.
Allison Kirkby, CEO, BT Group.
Anna Brailsford, CEO and co-founder, Code First Girls.
Francesca Carlesi, CEO, Revolut.
Louise Archer, academic, Institute of Education.
Karen Blake, tech inclusion strategist; former co-CEO of the Tech Talent Charter.
Hayaatun Sillem, CEO, Royal Academy of Engineering.
Kate Bell, assistant general secretary, TUC.
Amelia Miller, co-founder and CEO, ivee.
Ismini Vasileiou, director, East Midlands Cyber Security Cluster.
Emma O’Dwyer, director of public policy, Uber.
These experts will help the government “identify and dismantle” the barriers preventing women from joining or staying in the tech sector across the areas of education, training and career progression.
They will also advise on how to support and grow diversity in the UK’s tech ecosystem and replicate the success of organisations that already have an even gender split in their tech remits.
Collaboration has been heavily pinpointed in the past as being the only way sustained change can be developed when it comes to diversity in tech, with the taskforce working on advising the government on policy, while also consulting on how government, the tech industry and education providers can work together to make it easier to increase and maintain the number of women in tech.
The taskforce will work in tandem with other government initiatives aimed at encouraging women and young people into technology careers, such as the recently launched TechFirst skills programme and the Regional Tech Booster programme, among others.
The first meeting of the Women in Tech Taskforce took place on 15 December 2025.
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