THIS MORNING: OpenAI brings local inference to UAE + Adnoc is shuttling Iraqi crude across the Strait of Hormuz

Good morning, everyone. Presight’s domestic order book is bursting at the seams, while a new investment platform looks to tap into a so-far untapped asset.

Presight AI posted a record domestic order book in 2Q, with revenue up 36.1% y-o-y on large renewals of two national platforms and a first push into non-kinetic defense contracting. The bigger story may be what's still in the pipeline: local government clients have been “flooding in with requests” since the UAE's mandate to deploy agentic AI across half of government operations landed.

UAE-based IPNation launched its platform to invest in Arabic music and entertainment IP, an asset it’s saying is relatively untapped and set to become all the more valuable in the age of AI and quick, cheap content.

On the energy front, Adnoc is now shuttling Iraqi crude across Hormuz using the same short-hop, transponder-off playbook it’s used to keep its own barrels moving. We also have earnings from Talabat, Emirates Global Aluminium, Dewa, and Adnic.

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Bullet train on the way

Getting from Dubai to Abu Dhabi in 30 minutes will become a reality in 2031: Turkish builder Kalyon İnşaat says its consortium has started work on the Abu Dhabi section of Etihad Rail’s 150 km Abu Dhabi-Dubai high-speed line, Daily Sabah reports. The route is designed for speeds of up to 320 km/h, cutting the roughly 90-minute journey between the two cities to about 30 minutes, with completion scheduled for 2031.

Kalyon’s package covers around 97 km of the route, four stations, and one of the project’s biggest engineering jobs. The consortium, which also includes National and Construction, Trojan Tunnelling, and China State Construction Engineering, will build an 11.2 km twin-tube tunnel as part of the Abu Dhabi section.

BACKGROUND- The UAE awarded more than USD 8 bn of design-and-build contracts for the first 150 km phase earlier this year. The high-speed line will sit alongside Etihad Rail’s existing 900 km national network, which launched operations at the end of June and is set to connect an initial 11 cities, with a further seven set to be rolled out in phases. The first service linked Abu Dhabi to Fujairah, with additional stations due to open in Dubai, Al Dhafra, and Sharjah’s Al Dhaid this year. The operator also recently announced plans to extend the passenger network to Ajman.

OpenAI brings local AI inference to the UAE

The UAE is now one of only three markets globally where OpenAI runs AI model inference locally, alongside the US and Europe, under a new Inference Residency offering for eligible API, ChatGPT Enterprise, and ChatGPT Edu customers, the company stated. Why that matters: data residency only governs where content is stored at rest — inference residency means the actual computation happens on GPUs inside the UAE, not just the data sitting there afterward.

But it's not full local coverage yet: Only GPT-5.2 is currently supported under the UAE configuration, and several features are carved out — image generation, ChatGPT Work, improved memory, and GPT-Live all fall outside the residency framework and may still be processed elsewhere.

BACKGROUND- The offering is available to eligible API, ChatGPT Enterprise, and ChatGPT Edu customers, giving organizations with local compliance and governance requirements a new way to deploy OpenAI models within the country.

One producer's lifeline for another

Adnoc is shuttling Iraqi crude across the Strait of Hormuz using the same short-haul strategy that has kept most of its own barrels moving through the strait during regional disruptions, Bloomberg reports, citing people it says are in the know.

The playbook: Tankers make short journeys through the strait — often with their transponders switched off — before transferring crude to other vessels outside the Gulf. Vitol and TotalEnergies have so far been the main companies moving Iraqi oil through, while offers from the Gulf — other than Adnoc — have slowed this month as attacks and tensions picked back up.

Why it matters: Gulf producers don’t typically run interference for others’ exports — they compete for the same buyers. Adnoc doing this for Iraq is a signal of how seriously the region is treating the Hormuz risk right now and how much spare shuttling capacity and route knowledge Adnoc has built up defending its own barrels.

Tourism GDP set to contract (and then perhaps rebound?)

GCC tourism could shed 137k jobs this year as traveler numbers crater under the weight of the regional conflict, per the World Travel & Tourism Council’s (WTTC) Global Trends Report. The UAE’s tourism workforce is set to shrink to 901k jobs in 2026, down from 947k last year — though WTTC sees it rebounding to 1.2 mn by 2036.

GDP contribution from the Gulf’s travel and tourism sector is also expected to contract 14.5% to USD 330 bn, down from USD 386 bn in 2025. In March, the council estimated the conflict was costing regional tourism USD 600 mn a day, and GCC Secretary General Jasem Albudaiwi previously put the region’s potential revenue loss at USD 32 bn.

On the bright side: WTTC expects tourism’s contribution to GDP to rebound to USD 605 bn by 2036 — the sector’s long game holding up despite the turmoil. Experts previously told us a full recovery in tourism flows wouldn’t land until 2029.

BACKGROUND- 1H results for the hospitality sector showed hotel revenue per room down 31.8% YTD as occupancy slid 22.2% YTD to 57.9% — tracking with analysts’ call that inbound arrivals could drop 27% y-o-y for 2026.

Sports

Croatian manager Zlatko Dalić will be taking over as the UAE’s new head coach, succeeding Cosmin Olaroiu, according to an announcement by the UAE Football Association. Dalić previously led Al-Ain FC to a league title and an AFC Champions League final before taking charge of Croatia in 2017.

Data point

AED 148.4 bn — that’s the value of foreign investments poured into Dubai’s property sector in 1Q 2026, according to data from the Dubai Land Department (DLD). Total transactions were up 31% y-o-y during the quarter, coming in at AED 251 bn.

Data from 2Q could tell a different story. While DLD hasn’t released figures on international capital for the second quarter, Dubai’s real estate became increasingly fragmented in 2Q, with transactions falling 19% q-o-q and prices sliding.

PSA

WEATHER- It’s getting significantly hotter in the UAE today, with Dubai and Abu Dhabi seeing a high of 46°C and lows of 42-41°C, according to our favorite weather app.

The big story abroad

In the absence of a major update on the regional war, several stories from the business press took precedence on the front pages. Here are the most notable headlines:

US inflation in July was moderate: The consumer price index indicated that US inflation continued to ease last month, yet energy prices are still riding high since the US-Iran war erupted. The indicator rose 0.1% m-o-m and 3.4% annually, while core CPI (excluding food and energy) rose 2.5% over the year, potentially quelling the urgency of an imminent rate hike.

Bank of America has its eyes on the booming Indian economy, agreeing to acquire as much as 49.9% of Jio Financial Services’ lending unit for about USD 1.9 bn. The second-largest US lender will execute the investment through an allotment of shares and warrants in the Mumbai-based company, which is one of the region's fastest-growing financial firms.

Putting a price on the Truth (Social): US President Donald Trump has been hit with a lawsuit after his social media company Trump Media & Technology Group offered users a paid subscription that provides faster access to his Truth Social feed, through which he frequently signals policy changes. The service, called Truth API, charges a USD 100k monthly subscription and has been blasted by the plaintiffs as “profoundly corrupt” in a filing to a Manhattan federal court.

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