Every year in October, Dubai Harbour becomes a vibrant meeting point for the tech sector’s best and brightest. In 2022, Expand North Star convened over 1,000 exhibitors, nearly 700 investors, and 400 speakers from 63 countries. 2023 promises to be even bigger.

“It’s the biggest event in this region,” says Omar Sultan Al Olama, UAE’s Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications, as well as chairman of the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy, which co-hosts the event alongside global tech conference GITEX Global.

“We invite unicorns, entrepreneurs, thinkers, and talent from around the world to access cutting-edge thinking… think about what models might exist in the coming years… and build long-lasting partnerships,” Al Olama continues.

A key aspect of the event is the investor program, which matches startups looking for funding with VCs and institutional investors – 50% of which plan on investing an average $1.5 million.

The scale and internationalism of Expand North Star is at once affirmation of Dubai’s ascension to global tech hub status, and fuel to the fire. 120 companies set up in the UAE following last year’s show.

And they’re in good company. Giants like Amazon, Meta, and Nvidia have all established bases in Dubai, rubbing shoulders with the emirate’s thriving startup ecosystem. What is it drawing tech giants present and future to Dubai?

Precision farming

“We’re the world’s largest startup,” says Fionnuala Morris, Managing Director of Kyndryl for the Gulf and Levant region. “We were born about 18 months ago… [starting] with around 90,000 employees.”

Kyndryl is the largest IT services provider in the world, designing, building, and operating cloud platforms to run “mission critical” services for clients such as airlines, banks, and governments.

“A lot of people come here because of the quality of life, the education, the healthcare system”

— Fionnuala Morris, Managing Director of Kyndryl for the Gulf and Levant region

Unusually, the New York-headquartered company launched in multiple locations simultaneously, including Dubai. Morris says the emirate serves as a base to “serve customers to east and west, in close proximity to Asia and the Middle East and Africa.”

Providing that region-wide service is enabled by Dubai’s cutting-edge infrastructure, says Morris. “If we need to import any technology, anything that needs repairing… there is no limitation in terms of Dubai’s infrastructure.”

The emirate also offers a wealth of skilled digital workers – essential for a company like Kyndryl. “A lot of people come here because of the quality of life, the education, the healthcare system,” adds Morris.

And that talent pool is deepening. The UAE National Program for Coders seeks to attract and train 100,00 coders by 2026. And the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy recently launched ‘Create Apps in Dubai’, aiming to cultivate “the highest number of app developers in the region, and one of the highest in the world,” says Al Olama.

Initiatives like these are just two examples of the Dubai’s robust support for the digital economy.

Cultivating the community

In March 2023, Kyndryl joined the national NextGen FDI program – which offers a range of tailored support to international businesses looking to set up in the emirate.

“It’s almost like a skeleton key to the city,” says Morris of the program, providing “access to all the infrastructure and resources that you need to start operating quickly.” The initiative also offers entry to Dubai’s tech community, providing introductions to “different businesses, CEOs of public sector and private sector.”

It’s an ecosystem characterized by cooperation as much as competition, she continues. “The tech ecosystem is very unique in Dubai Internet City… There’s a real passion in the ecosystem not just to compete, but really serve the clients and make the city more successful.”

For example, Kyndryl is a member of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce’s Cloud Computing Group. “We talk together with local leadership and help them design policies, which is going to be beneficial for everybody.”

“There's a real passion in the ecosystem not just to compete, but really serve the clients and make the city more successful.”

— Fionnuala Morris, Managing Director of Kyndryl for the Gulf and Levant region

Other initiatives include the Dubai Future Foundation and UAE government’s RegLab, “a regulatory sandbox that tells any innovator that they can use Dubai as a sandbox to deploy technology and then convince other countries in other jurisdictions,” according to Al Olama.

And the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy works to support tech companies in scaling out to the rest of the world. The body “opens door for them, opens markets for them,” says Al Olama.

Incubating unicorns

Tech companies come to Dubai for its strategic location, cutting-edge infrastructure, robust government support, and pool of digital workers. But the best is yet to come.

Morris says she sees Dubai, “as an incubator for the next unicorns… because this is a place where they can come, they can test those business models and ideas in a safe manner and see if they work.”