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Dubai's World Government Summit to Focus on AI

Minister of Cabinet Affairs and Chairman of the World Government Summit Foundation Mohammad al-Gergawi during the press conference. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Minister of Cabinet Affairs and Chairman of the World Government Summit Foundation Mohammad al-Gergawi during the press conference. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Dubai's World Government Summit to Focus on AI

Minister of Cabinet Affairs and Chairman of the World Government Summit Foundation Mohammad al-Gergawi during the press conference. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Minister of Cabinet Affairs and Chairman of the World Government Summit Foundation Mohammad al-Gergawi during the press conference. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

The World Government Summit, set to begin on Feb. 12 in Dubai, will focus on artificial intelligence (AI).

This year's edition will discuss six main topics and 15 forums discussing future trends and transformations. It will feature over 110 interactive dialogues.

Themed Shaping Future Governments, the Summit brings together thought leaders, experts, and decision-makers from around the world.

More than 4,000 participants from the public and private sectors will participate in 110 interactive sessions. They 200 speakers from 80 international, regional, and intergovernmental organizations, including the UN, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Arab League, and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Minister of Cabinet Affairs Mohammed al-Gergawi said the new World Government Summit 2024 session brings together heads of state and governments, ministers, and heads of international organizations.

Gergawi stated during a press conference on Tuesday that the World Government Summit also hosts global leaders from the private sector, including CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman, CEO of Airbus Guillaume Faury, founder and CEO of NVIDIA Jensen Huang, co-and founder of Schmidt Futures and former CEO of Google Eric Schmidt.

He stated that the World Government Summit and an elite group of partners will launch a series of 25 strategic reports focusing on the most important practices and trends in vital sectors.

Ministerial meetings

The Summit hosts 15 global forums focusing on developing strategies and plans in the most vital sectors.

It is being organized in partnership with several international organizations and global technological institutions, in addition to institutions concerned with innovating new solutions to human societies' challenges.

The World Government Summit 2024 will continue its various dialogues through the Artificial Intelligence Forum, the Future of Work Forum, the Emerging Economies Forum, the Geotechnology Governance Forum, the Sustainable Development Goals Forum, the Arab Meeting for Young Leaders, and the Time 100 gala.

The Summit also hosts discussions and dialogues to anticipate the formation of future governments. They include round table meetings that bring together leaders of countries, global officials, international organizations, thought leaders, and the private sector.

The meetings aim to strengthen international cooperation, identify innovative solutions to future challenges, anticipate the most prominent opportunities, and inspire successive generations.

Arab finance ministers will also hold a meeting at the Summit, labor ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries will hold consultative meetings, and the energy minister will discuss the future of hydrogen energy.

Six themes

The Summit will focus on six main themes, including enhancing the pace of growth and change for effective governments, artificial intelligence, and new future horizons, and the new vision for development and coming economies.

The themes will also address the future of education, and the aspirations of tomorrow's societies, sustainability, and new global transformations, urban expansion and priorities, and global health.

Enhancing the pace of growth and change for effective governments is gaining traction at a time when global governments have accelerated their transformative digital initiatives and their reliance on technology in various fields.

It contributed to developing a system of new opportunities and many challenges.

Future policies should contribute to addressing the digital divide and ensure no one is left behind in the face of accelerating global changes.

The theme of artificial intelligence and new future horizons will focus on regulating this technology, designing it ethically, and identifying emerging trends.

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Technology

AI Giants Promise Publishers New Way to Block Some Scraping

An OpenAI logo is displayed at Moscone Center during the Dreamforce 2026 technology summit in San Francisco, California, US, September 17, 2026. (Reuters)
An OpenAI logo is displayed at Moscone Center during the Dreamforce 2026 technology summit in San Francisco, California, US, September 17, 2026. (Reuters)
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AI Giants Promise Publishers New Way to Block Some Scraping

An OpenAI logo is displayed at Moscone Center during the Dreamforce 2026 technology summit in San Francisco, California, US, September 17, 2026. (Reuters)
An OpenAI logo is displayed at Moscone Center during the Dreamforce 2026 technology summit in San Francisco, California, US, September 17, 2026. (Reuters)

OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Anthropic pledged on Friday to give media outlets and other websites a single way to prevent their content from being scraped to train artificial intelligence (AI) models, amid growing criticisms and legal battles from news publishers.

Publishers currently have to implement multiple blocking commands for every bot that crawls the web to collect data, but the new proposed solution will allow them to enter a single, standardized instruction that's recognized and honored by any AI company that adopts the protocol.

The solution will not fully take effect for months, though.

Microsoft will implement it beginning February 1, 2027, and Google sometime in 2027. ChatGPT-maker OpenAI said it will roll it out "in the coming months," while Claude-maker Anthropic said it has "already started" rolling it out.

The announcement comes as publishers are facing a surge in bots that scrape their articles to feed AI models. Some, like the New York Times, have taken the matter to court.

In December 2023, the Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for allegedly using millions of its articles without authorization or payment to train ChatGPT. The two tech companies are invoking an exception to copyright law known as fair use.

Meanwhile, internet infrastructure provider Cloudflare has blocked AI bots by default on new customer sites since July 2025, and a standard called Really Simple Licensing already allows publishers to charge bots that visit their pages.

The new setting will apply only to future training of models but does not prevent bots from crawling otherwise, and content scraping will be allowed by default until the setting is changed by a publisher, Microsoft said in a blog post.

Opting out of AI training could reduce the chances that a publisher's content will surface in AI apps and experiences, Microsoft and Google said in separate blog posts.

"We believe creating a common signal that conveys such preferences to multiple providers at once is an important step. And we look forward to working with other AI companies on the standards and their implementation across the industry," Meta spokesperson Andy Stone wrote on X, conveying his support for the effort.

Technology

Meta, TikTok, X Lose Legal Challenge against UK Watchdog over Online Safety Data Demands

Meta logo (Reuters)
Meta logo (Reuters)
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Meta, TikTok, X Lose Legal Challenge against UK Watchdog over Online Safety Data Demands

Meta logo (Reuters)
Meta logo (Reuters)

Meta, TikTok and X on Friday lost a legal challenge against British regulator Ofcom over the amount of information it is demanding they provide under Britain's nascent online safety regime.

The challenge is one of the first in relation ‌to the ‌2023 Online Safety Act, ‌which ⁠sets tougher standards ⁠for platforms such as TikTok, X and Meta's Facebook and Instagram with the aim to protect children from harmful and illegal content, reported Reuters.

Ofcom has been gradually ⁠implementing the regime, with ‌its requirements backed ‌up by the threat of fines ‌of up to 10% of ‌a company's global turnover for the most serious breaches.

In February, it issued information notices requesting detailed content moderation ‌metrics from the tech companies, including data on how ⁠many ⁠posts were removed or had visibility restricted, and how many users were exposed to harmful content.

Meta, TikTok and X argued the notices create unprecedented regulatory burdens, but their case was rejected by London's High Court.

None of the companies, nor Ofcom, immediately responded to requests for comment.

Technology

US Regulator Bans Chinese Labs from Electronics Testing

A person uses his cellphone on a street in Beijing, China, 29 October 2026. (EPA)
A person uses his cellphone on a street in Beijing, China, 29 October 2026. (EPA)
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US Regulator Bans Chinese Labs from Electronics Testing

A person uses his cellphone on a street in Beijing, China, 29 October 2026. (EPA)
A person uses his cellphone on a street in Beijing, China, 29 October 2026. (EPA)

A US regulator voted Thursday to ban Chinese labs from testing electronic devices ranging from smartphones to cameras for use in the United States.

The move, which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) says aims to boost security, comes a year after the agency adopted rules to ban test labs "owned or controlled by foreign adversaries."

Around 82 percent of certified devices in the United States are tested in recognized labs in China, the FCC estimates.

"These labs are a critical gateway into American communications infrastructure. And their privileged role gives them access to sensitive and confidential information about electronic products often months before the devices enter the market," the FCC said in a statement.

The ban, which will come into force in 2028, applies to test labs and certification bodies in countries that do not have a mutual recognition agreement with the United States, the agency said.

China does not have such a pact with the FCC, according to its website.

The agency said it began investigating "bad labs" after discovering in 2024 that Chinese tech giant Huawei was running an FCC-recognized Test Lab.

The FCC had previously blacklisted telecommunications equipment made by Huawei and several other Chinese firms over security concerns.

The latest ban would also protect the US technology industry by fighting against the "offshoring of electronics manufacturing, which is often collocated where devices are tested", it added.

Beijing criticized the policy which it said harmed trade between the world's top two economies.

"The US has overstretched the concept of national security, abused state power and unjustifiably cracked down on Chinese companies," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a regular briefing on Friday.

"The US actions seriously hinder normal economic and trade exchanges between Chinese and US businesses and run counter to the interests of all parties, including US companies and consumers."

He said Beijing would "take necessary measures" to safeguard its interests.

The FCC has been taking steps to separate Chinese entities from US supply chains.

In March, the regulator barred authorizations of new consumer routers made in foreign countries, also on national security grounds.