Dubai Future Foundation Opens AI Sandbox for Companies Nearing Market

Dubai Future Foundation has opened an AI Sandbox under its Sandbox Dubai programme, aimed at companies whose artificial intelligence products stall at the point where regulation begins. The target is local and international technology firms that already have working systems but cannot carry them past rules drafted without those systems in mind. It sits inside a wider push to turn pilot projects into commercial activity.

The sandbox takes in startups, small and medium-sized enterprises, established technology companies and government entities. The Dubai Centre for Artificial Intelligence is among the public bodies involved. The mix is deliberate: early-stage teams bring the applications, larger firms bring deployment experience, and public bodies bring the rules.

Participants work inside live testing settings with supervisors alongside them. They get guidance on regulation and support on the technical, policy and commercial sides of a deployment. Depending on the use case and the requirements that apply, they can also seek regulatory exemptions, which remain subject to approval by the authorities responsible. The combination is meant to shorten the distance between a validated prototype and a product a company can sell.

The foundation describes the obstacle as one that sits outside the code. Companies hit limits on data access, compliance obligations, and plain uncertainty over whether an existing policy covers a new class of AI application.

Khalifa Al Qama, who leads research, development and innovation at the foundation, said the UAE has made significant progress in AI adoption and that the next priority is getting promising technologies past testing and into practical use. That means looking beyond the technology itself, he said, and confronting the regulatory challenges companies face. In his account, the sandbox brings innovators and regulators together to test new applications, see where existing frameworks may need to adapt, and find workable answers. The aim is an environment where firms can develop and deploy AI with greater regulatory clarity while policy development keeps pace with innovation.

Sandboxes of this kind matter because AI rules are usually written before the applications they govern exist. A programme like this gives regulators a view of real deployments while there is still room to adjust, and gives companies a route to customers that does not depend on waiting for legislation. Tying admission to the production of evidence means the firms that get in are expected to feed what they learn back into policy. Regulators get early warning about where rules bite; companies get a decision instead of an open-ended wait.

Applications run until 18 December 2026 through the Sandbox Dubai website. The first intake is capped at 60 companies, spread across 29 sector categories, which include education, healthcare, transport and mobility, logistics, tourism, media and government services, among others. A solution qualifies if it has reached minimum viable product stage or beyond, can show it is ready to be commercialised, and is likely to generate evidence that informs policy and regulatory development. Submissions are assessed against those three tests.