Doha, Qatar: The technology industry in Qatar is poised for transformative growth with artificial intelligence (AI) and data centers playing a crucial role in enhancing its innovation. Last year, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) announced a $1bn fund of funds initiative to accelerate the startup ecosystem in the region.

An official noted that these incentives are driving young entrepreneurs and founders in the tech market with more talents arriving to explore opportunities in Qatar.

Commenting on the phenomenal performance of the tech sector in the country, Alfredo Cramerotti, director of the Media Majlis Museum at Northwestern University in Qatar, said: “Qatar’s investments are bolstering AI developments, which demonstrates the ambitious plans for the country to embrace and adapt new technologies and benefit its people.”

Last week, the Media Majlis Museum unveiled its new exhibition, ‘Ai or Nay? Artificial vs. Intelligent,’ highlighting the nascent connection between human creativity and machine learning in addition to tapping potential opportunities and challenges for AI in journalism and media. The exhibition is open to the public until May 15, 2025.

Stressing the importance of exhibiting the artwork for students and tech-enthusiasts, he said “I think it’s extremely important to have a university like Northwestern Qatar and a museum like the Media Majlis Museum investing in raising these kind of issues such as awareness, information, and balance on AI approaches and bringing to the general audience.”

He accentuated that the usage of AI in the broader media landscape results in positive outcomes.  “I tend to experiment with AI daily in order to have a critical awareness of the results and analyses them.

Pointing out a quote, which reads: ‘The pessimists are usually right but the optimists are those who change the world’, he said: “As a scholar and researcher, it is important to be on the optimist side to transform the world by using innovative and modern tech like the AI.”

The director said, “I’m also aware of the need to actually be aware of the information we are getting back from machine learning because it’s super important to counterbalance the English large number models.” 

Such as more of a positive impact you would see. 

Cramerotti further added, “All in all, AI will positively affect Qatar and the region because it’s a tool with more benefits and we need to strike a balance between benefits and costs in terms of human sort of values and basic values.”