UAE’s AI University MBZUAI Launches Fully Sovereign AI Model

A new advanced artificial intelligence model focused on technological sovereignty has been unveiled at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in Abu Dhabi.

K2 Think V2, a 70-billion-parameter reasoning system, is built on the K2-V2 base model, an open-source foundation system developed by the Institute of Foundation Models. According to MBZUAI, K2 Think V2 is designed to operate end-to-end as a fully sovereign AI system, with every stage open, inspectable and independently reproducible. The system is intended to handle complex, multi-step reasoning tasks across mathematics, science, coding, logic and simulation using extended chains of thought.

MBZUAI said the upgrade to the K2-V2 base model enhances performance, openness and independence, positioning the system as a frontier-grade AI platform aligned with the United Arab Emirates’ long-term sovereignty goals. The university described the model as globally accessible while remaining fully controlled within a sovereign framework.

The launch comes as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia continue to invest heavily in artificial intelligence infrastructure and research, each seeking to establish itself as the Middle East’s primary AI hub. Both countries have pursued partnerships with US technology firms and announced plans for large-scale data centre clusters. MBZUAI has also expanded its international footprint, with laboratory facilities now operating in Abu Dhabi, Paris and Silicon Valley.

In recent years, the UAE has been positioned as a potential testing ground for AI governance. In February 2024, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman described the country as a possible “regulatory sandbox” for experimenting with AI oversight frameworks. More recently, in December 2025, MBZUAI collaborated with Cerebras and Inception, a G42 company, to release ‘Jais 2’, an open-weight Arabic large language model trained on what the partners described as the most extensive Arabic-first dataset to date.