Future Beat: From local lamb to local ChatGPT

Hi there. Much of the emphasis on food security is put on?how crops will be grown in the desert. But a tomato has it easy compared to a sheep in the Gulf in July.

My colleague Nick Webster?reports how science-led farming is being used?to breed sheep that are suited to warm climates. Farmers in the UAE plan to breed grass-fed Australian White sheep, monitoring their health, and provide residents with affordable lamb sourced locally.

If successful at scale, farmers could help reduce live importing and cut down on carbon emissions in the process.

And from local lamb to local ChatGPT...

The Big Story (below) highlights another example of a global story getting a Middle East angle.

Be well,

Kelsey Warner, Future Editor?

The Big Story

Botim launches region's first 'Arabic ChatGPT'

In brief?| Astra Tech rolled out the first operational generative AI tool in Arabic this week.

The ChatGPT-like platform is integrated into Astra’s Botim app for a limited number of users in the Middle East and North Africa for now, in a research partnership with Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI).

The platform caters to all Botim services, including international money transfers, bill payments and government services, according to Astra.

Quoted?| “Botim’s 'Arabic ChatGPT' marks another significant step towards simplifying people's daily lives ... We are very excited to leverage the Arabic language modelling experts at MBZUAI to pilot the service on Botim for our select users as we train the model." - Abdallah Abu Sheikh, CEO of Astra Tech

Why it matters?| The advent of AI is often described as an arms race, and to the victor go the spoils. The UAE is taking the lead in the region.

Last month, Abu Dhabi's Technology Innovation Institute, a government-backed research hub,?announced it is developing its own large language model. Falcon LLM is under development for a wide variety of applications like language translation, content generation and sentiment analysis.

These are important foundational developments that may move the needle for the region, which is set to capture only a small fraction of the economic uplift expected from AI. This is according to the latest AI impact report from consultancy PWC, which estimates the fast-growing technology will contribute $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030 — with the Middle East capturing 2%.

Future in focus

Making it rain?| The UAE's weather bureau is upgrading its?fleet of cloud-seeding aircraft.

Not feeling too perky?|?Google is cutting costs?to meet its savings target by reducing free snacks, shuttle services and fitness sessions for employees as the search giant looks to boost investment in generative AI R&D.

Paving the way?| Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority has entered into a public-private partnership with US self-driving technology company Cruise to oversee?the introduction of self-driving taxis?in the emirate.

Predicting the future?|?Signal or noise??Dogecoin plunged 9% as some Twitter users began to see their home buttons on the social media platform restored to the blue bird logo after a few days of being replaced by the dog meme associated with the cryptocurrency.

This is noise?| Dogecoin is one of the most volatile cryptocurrencies out there, and it has ridden waves largely fuelled by the antics of Twitter-owner Elon Musk.

In case you missed it

Why the co-founder of Baidu is?bringing his life sciences start-up to Abu Dhabi.

The CEO of OSN on?what's next in the streaming wars.

And,?are biofuels about to be sold?at UAE petrol stations?