UAE Government to Deploy Microsoft's MDASH AI Security Tool

Microsoft, the UAE Cyber Security Council and Core42 plan to roll MDASH out across government entities in the UAE. MDASH is Microsoft's AI-driven cybersecurity tool, and the company is making it available to eligible customers in the country.

The tool applies AI models and automated analysis to two jobs: finding software vulnerabilities, and working out which of them matter most. The three partners say the aim is to strengthen national cyber resilience and to let government security teams respond faster to new threats. Each party carries a different part of the work.

A split of duties

The Cyber Security Council will support government adoption of AI for cybersecurity and responsible use of the technology. It will route that support through the national facility the UAE uses to test and validate artificial intelligence systems.

Core42, a G42 company, will take on onboarding, implementation and capacity building. It will do that through its Sovereign Public Cloud, which it runs with Microsoft. Core42 will also connect MDASH to its sovereign controls platform.

Microsoft's role is narrower on paper: technical expertise and implementation guidance for participating entities.

H.E. Dr. Mohamed Al Kuwaiti, Head of Cyber Security for the UAE Government, said the arrival of MDASH in the UAE would drive much broader take-up of AI-assisted code security in government and across the country's digital ecosystem.

Hayete Gallot, Executive Vice President for Security and Emerging Technologies at Microsoft, said the tie-up would help government bodies harden their defenses, raise their cyber readiness and prepare for threats that are still emerging.

Phased start

The rollout is planned in phases, starting with awareness sessions, pilots, technical workshops and onboarding for government entities.

Finding and ranking vulnerabilities is work that security teams often do under time pressure with limited staff. MDASH automates part of that triage: models scan code, and the system orders what it finds by risk. Microsoft is making the tool available to eligible customers in the UAE alongside the planned government deployment.

The division of labor is the part worth watching. A foreign vendor supplies the detection engine, a domestic cloud company installs and runs it, and a government regulator sets the terms for how AI is used inside state systems. Core42's sovereign cloud, operated with Microsoft, is the mechanism that keeps data and controls inside the country while the product itself comes from outside. For the Cyber Security Council, the project is a way to shape how AI enters government security work rather than simply approve a purchase. Whether the promised gains in response speed materialize will be decided in the pilot phases.