Abu Dhabi-based investment and holding company ADQ has partnered with Switzerland's artificial intelligence solutions provider EQTY Lab for artificial intelligence-driven climate solutions.
The collaboration between the companies began in 2023 with the launch of ClimateGPT, an open-source AI model designed to address climate change and sustainability challenges, according to a statement.
The partnership will involve deploying the AI Integrity Suite from EQTY Lab, which ensures the reliability, security and transparency of ADQ's AI models.
"The AI Integrity Suite is our flagship product, and we're implementing it with ADQ. We're directly integrating the solution into the deployment of ClimateGPT, " Jonathan Dotan, Founder of EQTY Lab, shared with The National.
Mr Dotan explained that the AI Integrity Suite ensures transparency throughout the model development process. It allows users to verify the origin of the data used to train the model and the code utilized for fine-tuning.
He added that the solution guarantees the integrity of the model's outputs, providing clarity on the model’s sources and ensuring compliance with proper governance standards.
With ClimateGPT, a tool powered by Erasmus and trained by Apptek, researchers, policymakers and business leaders can drive resilient climate action.
Mr Dotan explained that the Climate GPT model is designed to process and analyse thousands of high-quality scientific research articles. This allows users—such as experts and companies developing ESG strategies—to ask specific questions and receive concise, accurate answers drawn from these reputable sources, he added.
ClimateGPT operates on renewable energy at Al Dhafra Solar PV in Abu Dhabi, the world's largest single-site solar plant.
ADQ and its portfolio companies – Adnec Group, Etihad Rail, Taqa and Masdar – will be the first to deploy this technology in the UAE, the statement said.
ClimateGPT also supports the research and execution of environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives. For example, Masdar uses the model to analyse emerging renewable energy solutions and co-author articles that drive efficiencies.
Adnec has also implemented the model to build a custom global research library, enhancing the group's efforts in ESG research.
Mr Dotan also emphasised that he does not intend for the Climate GPT model to become a mainstream tool millions use. "It's a very specialized tool that was built for senior analysts, researchers, and the scientific community to come together to get the most cutting-edge, evolved AI for climate change," he explained.
ClimateGPT joins a broader trend of AI models being used to combat climate change.
Last year, Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in Abu Dhabi launched Jais Climate, the world's first bilingual language model dedicated to climate intelligence.
A partnership between Core42, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi-based technology holding company G42, and the university led to the development of the large language model (LLM), which focuses on climate, sustainability and Cop28.
According to MBZUAI and Core42, Jais Climate includes 1.4 million climate-related instructions, and it was trained on ClimaInstruct, the largest bilingual data set on climate and sustainability topics.
The LLM was created using sources and climate information in English and Arabic. Jais refers to the UAE's highest peak, Ras Al Khaimah.
According to MBZUAI and Core42, Jais Climate will make climate data accessible to more than 274 million Arabic and 1.4 billion English speakers worldwide.
Globally, a specialised AI known as ChatClimate, similar to ChatGPT, was developed by researchers at the University of Zurich last year.
According to a study, ChatClimate is a conversational AI designed to enhance the accuracy and relevance of LLMs in climate change. It draws on data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Sixth Assessment Report.
A PwC study on the potential impact of AI in the Middle East finds that AI is expected to significantly contribute to the broader region's gross domestic product, with the UAE projected to see a 14 per cent increase in its GDP.
Construction, manufacturing, energy, utilities and public sectors are poised to experience the most significant economic impact as AI drives substantial innovation and growth, the study found.
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
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Rating: 4/5
Where to apply
Applicants should send their completed applications - CV, covering letter, sample(s) of your work, letter of recommendation - to Nick March, Assistant Editor in Chief at The National and UAE programme administrator for the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism, by 5pm on April 30, 2020.
Please send applications to nmarch@thenational.ae and please mark the subject line as “Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism (UAE programme application)”.
The local advisory board will consider all applications and will interview a short list of candidates in Abu Dhabi in June 2020. Successful candidates will be informed before July 30, 2020.
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More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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