Robots are playing an increasingly important role in our daily lives, and Dubai is leveraging its position as a forward-thinking, technology-savvy city to take advantage of a future with robots. In this sci-tech episode, we look at the role of these smart machines Dubai.
Robots are playing an increasingly important role in the modern city of Dubai. Robotics is already having an impact on several key industries in the emirate, from manufacturing and surgery to security and deliveries.
Khalifa Al Qama, director of Dubai Future Labs at the Dubai Future Foundation, told Euronews, “We have embarked on this journey over the past 20 years where robots are enabling digital services to provide additional convenience to the citizens of the city. Because of this infrastructure, we can now benefit from robots existing in our society and providing us with services.”
Impact on industry
Healthcare is an important area where robotics provides essential support. Dr. Yaser Saeedi, a consultant urologist and robotic surgeon at Dubai Hospital, is the first Emirati to be trained in robotic surgery in his specialty of urology. He currently uses a fourth-generation robotic system developed by NASA. The Da Vinci Xi is considered the most advanced system currently available.
Dr. Yaser explained that the technology helps surgeons perform complex procedures and offers benefits such as minimally invasive surgery and increased accuracy using robotic arms. He told Euronews, “With robotic surgery, laparoscopic surgery has evolved…the results are much better than with traditional surgery…. Less blood loss, faster recovery, and all these benefits…. And most surgeons are gradually moving to robotic surgery.”
AI and digitalization company DG World provides robotics, industrial automation and advanced mobility solutions, benefiting from the industrial sector’s move towards autonomous systems. The company develops self-driving trucks, small delivery vehicles and robotic arms. The Boston Dynamic autonomous robotic dog performs inspection tasks, including crime scene investigation and high-risk areas to retrieve data.
Matthias Krause, managing director of DG World, said, “There has been a significant increase in interest in robotics, especially the Boston Dynamic robotic dog. There are nuclear authorities who want to check nuclear power plants. Police are very interested in how they can use it for various civilian tasks, crime scene evaluation, and many other applications and ideas. We had contact with Dubai Customs, which was looking at modern surveillance of areas. There were a lot of such application requests that were more or less triggered by the customers.”
A self-thinking city
Arious Holding’s Singularious project takes robotics and artificial intelligence to the next level, one step beyond a smart city. The group is helping to plan and develop the world’s first self-thinking city in the United Arab Emirates and is in the process of redefining the way we build communities in the future.
Chris Roberts, Chairman of Singularious and Group CEO of Eltizam, said, “We want to create and build new cities for the future. Cities based on AI rather than traditional buildings. A ‘conscious city’ that thinks for itself thanks to AI. This is something that will have a dramatic impact on our everyday lives, on how we maintain and manage cities in the future.”
Dr. Ben Goertzel, managing director of SingularityNet and chief scientist at Singularious, who helped develop the social humanoid robot Sofia, the music robot Desdemona and the health robot Grace, is also working on the master plan for Singularious’ self-thinking city. He told Euronews, “In most smart cities, you’re dealing with a kind of disparate collection of smart devices that do certain things. They’re not unified into one overall cognitive system. And that’s the goal of the self-thinking city: city-level intelligence at the service of the people who live in the city.”