Almaty in Kazakhstan has been named the new host city for the 2029 Asian Winter Games, replacing the Trojena ski resort at Neom, after the event was postponed amid construction delays.
The decision was formally announced at a signing ceremony in Milan, where the Olympic Council of Asia confirmed that Almaty would stage the 10th edition of the Asian Winter Games in 2029.
The event was originally awarded to Saudi Arabia, with plans to host it at Trojena, an under-construction mountain tourism destination positioned as a centrepiece of Neom. However, following widespread reports of project delays, the OCA and the Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee jointly announced last month that the Games at Trojena would be postponed for an unspecified period.
At the Milan ceremony, the OCA confirmed that the Host City Contract had been signed with the National Olympic Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan, completing the formal institutional process required to award the continental event.
According to the OCA, the Asian Winter Games play a key role in promoting winter sports across Asia and in strengthening cooperation among national Olympic committees. The council also highlighted the growing participation of Asian nations in winter disciplines and the continued development of organisational and technical capabilities across the region.
The Almaty Games will mark the tenth edition of the Asian Winter Games and are expected to attract broad participation from across the continent, reflecting Asia’s expanding footprint in winter sports.
Novartis’ Judith Love says UAE is a strategic hub for pharma innovation
Across the GCC, Novartis continues to expand in oncology, cardiovascular, renal and metabolic diseases, immunology, and neuroscience, while also investing in advanced therapy platforms
The UAE is positioning itself as a global reference point for pharmaceutical innovation, driven by regulatory maturity, public-private collaboration, and a clear commitment to advancing healthcare, according to Novartis, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies.
The UAE pharmaceutical market is valued at $4.15bn and is projected to double by 2033, according to the Emirates Drug Establishment. Industry leaders say the country’s strength lies not just in market size but in its ability to provide a predictable, investment-friendly environment for global life sciences companies.
Mohamed Ezz Eldin, Novartis GCC Cluster head, said regulatory evolution has had a direct impact on patient access. “We see ourselves as a long-term partner to the UAE government and healthcare system. Our priority is to accelerate access to innovative medicines through close collaboration with regulators, payers, providers, and other stakeholders,” he said. Fast-track reviews, early access pathways, and transparent pricing mechanisms have enabled the UAE to become a reference for efficient access to innovation.
Across the GCC, Novartis continues to expand in oncology, cardiovascular, renal and metabolic diseases, immunology, and neuroscience, while also investing in advanced therapy platforms, including cell and gene therapies and radioligand therapies. “Our approach is innovation-driven, but always patient-centric,” Ezz Eldin added.
Novartis’ role in the UAE extends beyond launching medicines, says Eldin
Novartis’ role in the UAE extends beyond launching medicines. Through early access pathways, patients with spinal muscular atrophy were among the first globally to receive advanced therapies. “The UAE has shown that when trust exists between regulators and industry, innovation can reach patients faster than in many developed markets,” Ezz Eldin noted.
Judith Love, regional president Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa at Novartis, highlighted the strategic importance of the UAE and GCC. “There is a strong appreciation for cutting-edge healthcare across the region. When governments, regulators, and industry share the same vision, collaboration becomes seamless,” he said. National strategies such as UAE Vision 2031 and Saudi Vision 2030 align with Novartis’ priorities in innovation, access, and sustainability, giving the company confidence to invest.
The region’s population growth and high burden of non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, further underscore its strategic significance for Novartis.
A defining feature of the UAE healthcare ecosystem, according to Novartis, is “day zero access.” In the past year, five Novartis medicines were approved in the UAE within days of FDA approval, and four patients with spinal muscular atrophy were treated before any other country globally.
Public-private partnerships are the way forward for pharma innovation
Public-private partnerships underpin this progress. Novartis participates in the Genomic Innovation Consortium, leveraging the Emirati Genome Program and linking genomic, electronic medical records, and biobank data to support precision medicine.
The company also collaborates with the Emirates Oncology Society and the Pink Caravan to improve awareness, screening, and early intervention.
Looking ahead, Novartis plans to expand innovation across cardiovascular disease, neuroscience, immunology, oncology, and areas with unmet medical needs. The UAE’s pharmaceutical sector, industry leaders say, is emerging as a blueprint for how ambition, regulation, and partnership can work together to shape the future of healthcare.
Daleel has officially launched at PropTech Connect Dubai with an ambition that cuts to the core of one of real estate’s most persistent challenges: bias.
Unveiled under the Dubai Land Department’s Real Estate Evolution Space (REES) programme, the AI-native real estate intelligence platform combines verified government transaction data with conversational artificial intelligence to deliver institutional-grade insights across Dubai’s $100bn property market. The launch was accompanied by a $3m pre-seed raise.
Founded by former Dubai broker Ilan Cohen and AI specialist Ely Weichsel, Daleel positions itself as a data-first alternative to opinion-driven property advice. The platform allows agents, brokers, investors and buyers to ask natural-language questions, from yield comparisons to rental performance, and receive answers grounded in official Dubai Land Department (DLD) data, rather than asking prices or sales narratives.
“Daleel is the Arabic word for guide,” Cohen explained. “And this is exactly what we are bringing to the market. We are bringing clarity.”
The idea for Daleel was born out of Cohen’s own experience on the front lines of Dubai’s real estate market. Over five years, he closed hundreds of millions of dirhams worth of transactions — and found himself repeatedly constrained by the inefficiency of existing tools.
“I was wasting a lot of time when I wanted to search for a property, whether to buy or to rent,” he said. “I would go on listing platforms, compare price per square foot, understand rentals, floor plans, views, then cross-check everything against DLD data from other platforms. After that, I still had to run financial and investment analysis before sending anything to a client.”
That process limited scale. “The maximum I could handle was maybe five or ten clients at the same time,” Cohen said.
The breakthrough came when he approached his co-founder with a simple question: could AI sit on top of a unified data layer and answer complex real estate questions instantly?
“I asked, ‘Would it be possible to use data as a central database, and then just ask whatever question I have?’” Cohen recalled. “I don’t want to search for hours. I want the investment report in one go.”
The result is Daleel: a conversational AI directly connected to DLD data through the REES incubation programme, designed to surface facts, scenarios and risks — without recommendations.
L to R: Ilan Cohen and Ely Weichsel, Daleel co-founders
Removing bias by design
A core promise of Daleel is that it does not tell users what to buy. Instead, it shows what the data says and leaves the decision to the user.
“When you create an AI, you decide its profile,” Cohen said. “And our AI will never tell you ‘invest there’ or ‘do this’. It will only show you whatever is true in the market from your research, and you take the decision.”
That design choice is deliberate. Cohen described being approached by market participants asking whether paid listings or prioritisation could influence outputs.
“That’s exactly what we never want to do,” he said. “You cannot create a strong real estate market if investments are made on bias.”
In traditional brokerage models, multiple agents often offer conflicting advice, shaped by incentives rather than data. “You call one agent, you get his view. You call another, you get hers. Everyone has a bias or an interest,” Cohen said. “If you convince people that their investment is grounded in data, you remove that feeling afterwards of being pushed into something they didn’t really want.”
The conviction behind Daleel resonated early with investors. Cohen said the platform secured backing before a live product existed.
“One of my largest investors is also a large property investor in Dubai,” he said. “He owns more than Dhs100m in properties that he purchased with me. I pitched him the idea and now we have the product you see today.”
The response was immediate. “He understood the meaning and said, ‘I want it,’” Cohen said. “He trusted that if this could come to market, it could be revolutionary.”
That belief translated into the $3m pre-seed round, backing a platform that positions AI not as a marketing layer, but as a structural upgrade to how property intelligence is consumed.
From Dubai to the wider GCC
Dubai is deliberately Daleel’s starting point. “My experience was Dubai, so it felt like the right place to start,” Cohen said. “We needed government data, and DLD provided it.”
Once the model is proven, expansion follows a phased approach. “First Abu Dhabi, then Ras Al Khaimah,” he said, before turning to Saudi Arabia.
“Saudi is at a big inflection point,” Cohen noted. “They are opening to international investors, and at the beginning it’s always hard because there is no data base. The chance they have is to create the market on a healthy base, and this is what we are ready to bring.”
While Daleel has launched with a freemium model, its commercial focus is firmly B2B. The platform can be white-labelled for brokerages, developers and family offices, embedding proprietary data, pitch frameworks and negotiation strategies within the AI interface.
“They could have their own logo, their own data, their own way to orient sales or negotiation,” Cohen said. “They just share a link, and everything is there.”
Success, he added, will not be measured by a single metric. “We want to see how regular people use it, how brokers use it, how developers use it, and which category is most inclined to adopt it,” he said. “That will show us the right way to scale in the Emirates and across the GCC.”
With seven internal staff, 15 external contributors, and early traction at launch, Daleel enters the market at a moment when AI-native platforms are moving from experimentation to infrastructure. Its bet is that in real estate — where trust, data and capital intersect — clarity may be the most valuable asset of all.
Sharjah Airport has expanded its international airline network with the addition of Indian carrier SpiceJet, strengthening air connectivity between the UAE and India and reinforcing the emirate’s position as a growing regional aviation hub.
The Sharjah Airport Authority (SAA) announced the launch of the new scheduled service connecting Ahmedabad Airport with Sharjah International Airport, a move aimed at supporting business travel, tourism and family visits between the two countries, a WAM report said.
According to the announced schedule, flights commenced on Thursday, February 5, operating five times per week using Boeing 737 aircraft. The new service is expected to meet rising travel demand while offering passengers greater flexibility and convenience between Gujarat and the UAE.
Expanding links with a key market
The addition of Ahmedabad to Sharjah Airport’s destination network forms part of the airport’s broader strategy to expand its global presence and attract additional international carriers. India remains one of Sharjah Airport’s most significant source markets for both inbound and outbound travellers, supported by strong economic ties and a large expatriate population.
Ali Salim Al Midfa, chairman of Sharjah Airport Authority, welcomed the launch of the new SpiceJet flights, noting that the route aligns with the Authority’s efforts to enhance connectivity and passenger choice.
“The addition of this route forms part of the Authority’s ongoing efforts to enhance the passenger experience through a wider range of travel options and highly efficient operational services,” Al Midfa said.
He highlighted that Sharjah Airport continues to invest in developing its facilities and smart services to ensure seamless procedures and smooth passenger movement, helping to maintain high levels of traveller satisfaction while keeping pace with steady passenger growth.
Focus on partnerships and growth
Al Midfa further noted that the Authority remains committed to building long-term strategic partnerships with airline partners, supporting network expansion and opening new avenues for cooperation.
“This approach reflects the airport’s vision to consolidate its position as a leading regional travel hub, combining service excellence, operational efficiency, and an integrated passenger experience,” he said.
The launch comes as Sharjah Airport continues to expand its route network, with several new destinations recently added, including Krabi, Munich, Prague, Warsaw Modlin, Vienna, Addis Ababa and Sochi. Direct flights to London are also scheduled to commence in March 2026.
SpiceJet cites strong demand
Debojo Maharshi, chief business officer at SpiceJet, said the Ahmedabad–Sharjah service represents a significant addition to the airline’s international network.
“The launch of our Ahmedabad-Sharjah service is a meaningful addition to SpiceJet’s international network and reflects the strong and growing travel demand between India and the UAE,” Maharshi said.
“Sharjah has long been an important destination for Indian travellers, whether for work, tourism or visiting family, and this new service will offer them a reliable and convenient travel option,” he added, noting that the airline looks forward to working closely with Sharjah Airport Authority to further strengthen its regional presence.
During 2025, Sharjah Airport expanded its network to more than 100 global destinations, with four new international airlines joining its portfolio. The airport also introduced additional services and operational enhancements, contributing to faster passenger processing and reduced waiting times.
Sharjah Airport Authority reaffirmed its commitment to working closely with airline partners to continue developing its network and delivering a seamless, efficient and distinguished travel experience for all passengers.
The five most important AI questions facing UAE business leaders in 2026
By embedding agentic workflows, conversational intelligence, and natural-language search within business management systems, organisations can automate reconciliations, identify exceptions and speed up approvals
The AI opportunity is vast and could equate to $4.68tn to the Middle East’s GDP by the year 2035, according to PwC. Yet, while the potential of AI is significant, short-term returns are less obvious. BCG finds that only five per cent of companies are “AI future-built”, while 60 per cent report minimal revenue and cost gains despite existing investments.
The gap lies not just in the technology, but in the foundations needed to support it – alignment, data, workflows, and leadership. As 2026 unfolds, business leaders need to ask a new set of questions to further unlock the UAE’s AI potential. Ones that look beyond adoption and address the structures required to enable sustainable, explainable, organisation-wide AI value creation.
Are we prepared to realise the potential of AI?
It is tempting to simply automate existing processes. But if the data and workflow were flawed to begin with, automation only increases the speed and scale of inefficiency.
AI is now integrated into leading business management systems. By embedding agentic workflows, conversational intelligence, and natural-language search within these platforms, organisations can automate reconciliations, identify exceptions, speed up approvals, and guide next steps without increasing complexity. These advantages multiply when teams work from unified data, processes, and governance frameworks.
Without a connected system—shared data, clear oversight, and consistent adoption—these benefits cannot scale. Instead, organisations risk increased busywork rather than meaningful operational impact. This underscores a critical point: many so-called ‘productivity measures’ reward activity, not necessarily impact. So before applying AI to an outdated legacy system, explore its purpose: Why is our process structured this way? How would it differ if we were starting from scratch today?
Without shedding legacy assumptions and redesigning around outcomes around a single source of truth, automation risks accelerating inefficiency rather than amplifying value.
How can we trust the decisions AI is supporting?
The shift toward AI-enabled operations exposes a long-standing issue: fragmented data. Many organisations hold vast amounts of information, but only a portion is consistent, governed, and accessible enough to support intelligent systems. And if a system cannot be explained, it should not be deployed because responsible AI is always explainable. The good news is that the ‘garbage in, garbage out’ phenomenon is now widely recognised by business leaders.
The task for businesses now is to centralise real-time data from across the organisation, including finance, operations, HR and supply chain, and make it connected and accessible across departments.
Seeing information presented in a dashboard specific to an employee’s role and responsibilities and being able to zoom in and out and question points of concern allows leaders to make decisions based on one source of truth, rather than instinct. And when more employees can access the same consistent data, organisations gain more eyes on possible risks and unlock more opportunities to surface useful insights.
What is our plan for shadow AI tools?
Employees are already using AI tools, whether business leaders approve of them or not. On one hand, this demonstrates a healthy appetite for AI and the potential for productivity gains. On the other hand, it raises serious questions around data governance, security, and compliance when organisational data is shared beyond the systems of the business.
Leaders should focus on providing secure, governed ways for employees to harness AI in alignment with organisational policy. Solutions that give employees a flexible and scalable way to connect their own AI to a business management system help ensure outputs are informed by business-approved data and remain fully compliant. This approach allows leaders to take back control of AI interactions without stifling the innovation already happening across the workforce.
How will our people interact with AI in 2026?
The way employees work with systems is changing rapidly. Conversational intelligence, agentic workflows, and natural-language search are becoming part and parcel of day-to-day operations.
Instead of navigating dashboards or clicking through menus, employees will increasingly interact with systems through conversational queries (such as “show me the revenue from the last two quarters”) or engage with autonomous agents that can execute complex multi-step workflows at the direction of a human user. AI will be embedded into the applications that people use every day, not requiring specialised interfaces or technical knowledge to extract value.
This shift requires leaders to rethink skills, governance, and the design of employee experiences. Advanced ERP systems put AI to work for business leaders by making it a natural extension of the way the business already operates.
What skills will matter when everyone is augmented by AI?
Reskilling initiatives focused solely on technical competencies will not suffice. The competitive advantage in an AI-augmented workplace belongs not just to those who can operate the technology, but to those who can interpret, challenge, and contextualise its outputs.
As intelligent tools expand our capabilities, business leaders should put a premium on critical reasoning and creative synthesis and ensure that learning and development plans evolve to strengthen these irreplaceable competencies.
In 2026, the organisations that will capture the true value of AI are not those that simply deploy more tools, but those that rethink the foundations on which those tools operate.
Sustainable impact comes from:
Redesigning workflows around outcomes
Establishing a single trusted source of data
Enabling secure and governed use of emerging AI capabilities
Business leaders must also anticipate how employees will interact with systems in a more conversational, agent-driven environment.
Millennium Hotels positions Middle East as launchpad for 500-hotel vision
The Middle East has shown what can be achieved with the right partners, the right infrastructure and a shared commitment to quality, says Kwek Leng Beng, executive chairman of Millennium Hotels and Resorts
L to R: Ali Hamad Lakhraim Alzaabi, chairman of Millennium & Copthorne – MENAT and Kwek Leng Beng, executive chairman of Millennium Hotels and Resorts (MHR) and executive chairman of Hong Leong Group Singapore/Image: Supplied
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Millennium Hotels and Resorts (MHR) is deepening its long-term growth partnership between Asia and the Middle East as it advances its global expansion strategy, positioning the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey (MENAT) region as a central engine for scale, connectivity and international growth.
The strategy leverages the Middle East’s established strengths, including world-class infrastructure, global aviation connectivity, pro-investment frameworks and sustained tourism demand, to support MHR’s expansion into high-potential gateway cities and leisure destinations across international markets.
Over the past decade, the Middle East has emerged as one of the world’s most dynamic travel hubs. Dubai welcomed 18.72 million international overnight visitors in 2024 and recorded 15.70 million overnight visitors between January and October 2025, representing 5 per cent year-on-year growth. The emirate’s hospitality sector continues to operate at scale, with more than 152,000 hotel rooms across 820 establishments, underpinned by strong occupancy and rate performance.
Investor confidence across the region remains robust. According to Lodging Econometrics, more than 84,000 hotel rooms were under construction across the Middle East in Q1 2025, with a further 47,000 rooms scheduled to begin construction within the next 12 months, underscoring long-term confidence in the region’s tourism fundamentals.
MHR’s leadership views MENAT not only as a high-growth market, but also as a strategic launchpad for global scale—connecting international travellers, corporate clients and owners—while deploying a disciplined and proven operating and brand model across strategic destinations worldwide.
“Millennium Hotels and Resorts has always been built with a long-term mindset, and I have a vision to grow to 500 hotels globally. The Middle East has shown what can be achieved with the right partners, the right infrastructure and a shared commitment to quality. We want to build on that success and replicate it across other strategic markets by connecting global travellers, businesses and communities through destinations that matter,” said Kwek Leng Beng, executive chairman of Millennium Hotels and Resorts (MHR) and executive chairman of Hong Leong Group Singapore.
Ali Hamad Lakhraim Alzaabi, chairman of Millennium & Copthorne – MENAT, added: “The Middle East today is a destination of choice and a global hub for leisure, business, culture and major events. Our region’s strength is not only demand, but also execution: the ability to deliver at scale, to host the world, and to create a consistent, high-quality guest experience. The partnership with Chairman Kwek reflects a shared belief in long-term value creation and in building platforms that endure.”
Chaker Zeraiki, president of Millennium Hotels and Resorts – MENAT, said: “Our objective is to translate the region’s proven formula connectivity, infrastructure, owner confidence and operational excellence into a scalable growth platform for MHR. By leveraging MENAT as a hub and a benchmark for delivery, we can accelerate our expansion into strategic gateway cities and leisure destinations; while ensuring we remain disciplined on brand standards and guest experience.”
MHR’s MENAT growth strategy aligns closely with the region’s broader transformation agenda, supported by mega events and destination-led investment. Saudi Arabia, for example, has raised its tourism ambition to 150 million visitors by 2030 and is preparing to host major global events including Expo 2030, the FIFA World Cup 2034 and the Esports World Cup, further strengthening international visibility and travel flows across the region.
The group’s expansion model remains anchored in disciplined brand stewardship, strong owner relationships and cultural fluency, while maintaining global standards—an approach that has underpinned MHR’s scale-up across MENAT and will continue to guide its next phase of global growth.
