DST Dubai AI Festival 2026
Dubai World Trade Centre, Dubai · Organized by Dubai AI Campus, in partnership with DIFC
- Dates
- Oct 26, 2026 – Oct 27, 2026
- Format
- In person
- Where
- Dubai World Trade Centre, Dubai
- Organizer
- Dubai AI Campus, in partnership with DIFC
Most AI conferences are organised by the industry. This one is organised by a financial centre, and the difference shows in what it puts on the agenda.
Dubai AI Festival 2026 dates
26–27 October 2026 at the Dubai World Trade Centre. It is run by the Dubai AI Campus in partnership with DIFC, and managed by Terrapinn.
The eight tracks
AI for all. Global AI governance. Immersive experiences. Innovation and ethics. Future of work. AI cornerstone. AI literacy. Infrastructure and investment.
Who the organisers are bringing
The festival advertises 20+ global unicorns, 20+ government agencies and ministries, 20+ global enterprises and 20+ venture capital firms. Speaker numbers were still shown as placeholders on the festival site when this page was checked, so none are quoted here.
Three of the eight tracks — governance, ethics, literacy — are not the ones a vendor-run event would spend a third of its floor on, and that is the tell about who is convening this. DIFC is a regulator as much as a landlord, and the questions it needs answered are about what can be deployed inside a financial free zone rather than what can be demonstrated. The week also matters: this sits two weeks after GITEX, which means the people who came for the trade show have gone home, and the room is smaller and more specific for it.
Source: Dubai AI Festival checked against the source
