AI use in the UAE continues to grow at a steady pace, with OpenAI noting that its user base in the country has tripled over the past year. Among younger residents, weekly engagement is particularly high: the company reports that roughly 60 percent of people aged 18 to 24 and about half of those aged 25 to 34 use ChatGPT on a weekly basis. The figures reflect a broader regional trend in which generative AI is becoming a routine tool for study, work and day-to-day problem-solving.
In response to this acceleration, OpenAI has introduced a local data-residency option for the UAE. The feature allows enterprise, public-sector and education clients using ChatGPT Enterprise, ChatGPT Edu, or the company’s API platform to store their data within the country’s borders. Data-residency controls have become increasingly important for organisations that need to meet national governance standards and sector-specific compliance requirements while expanding their use of AI across operations.
A number of UAE institutions have already integrated OpenAI systems into internal workflows, research processes, or service-delivery models. Organisations such as G42, Mubadala, Abu Dhabi Investment Council, Aldar, MBZUAI, Khalifa University, NYU Abu Dhabi, Higher Colleges of Technology, United Arab Emirates University and fintech firm Tabby are deploying AI tools in ways that support productivity goals and contribute to national digital-transformation plans, including the UAE Vision 2031 strategy. The variety of adopters also shows how generative AI is moving beyond tech-focused sectors and into broader administrative, academic and commercial environments.
OpenAI’s regional enterprise leadership describes the UAE as moving quickly on long-term AI adoption, with policies and infrastructure projects designed to give organisations more flexibility in how they implement emerging technologies. The new data-residency feature fits into that broader effort by giving institutions more control over where their information is held and how it is governed.
The announcement follows the earlier reveal of Stargate UAE, a planned data-centre cluster developed in collaboration with the UAE Government and several large technology partners, including G42, Oracle, NVIDIA, Cisco and SoftBank. While details on the project’s rollout remain limited, the initiative signals ongoing investment in the infrastructure required to support expanding AI workloads in the region.
OpenAI says the new data-residency capability maintains the company’s existing security commitments, including encryption of data at rest and in transit, default exclusion of enterprise and API customer data from model training, and configurable retention settings managed under a Data Processing Addendum. For organisations weighing whether to scale AI deployments, these measures may help address some of the governance and privacy concerns that typically arise when sensitive data interacts with cloud-based systems.
