Masdar City, the sustainable urban development in the UAE's capital, Abu Dhabi, is set to play a key role in the global green recovery from COVID-19 as it continues to add sustainability-focused innovation and technology companies. The number of companies in the City's free zone increased 26 percent in 2020, indicating the important role of the City and its offerings to innovation-led companies, including G42 Healthcare, whose laboratories and testing centers were central to the UAE's pandemic response.
The figures emphasize the essential need for innovation in progressing the green transition through the development and commercialization of new technologies. Masdar City is Abu Dhabi's only planned and approved research and development (R&D) cluster and is now home to more than 900 companies, ranging from multinationals and SMEs, to homegrown startups. These companies are developing ground-breaking technological solutions to some of the world's most pressing environmental challenges, across the key sectors of energy, water, artificial intelligence, health, space, agriculture, and mobility.
"The UAE leadership has made a longstanding commitment to progressive climate action and recognizes the integral part that innovation plays in advancing the global green recovery," said, Abdulla Balalaa, Executive Director, Masdar City. "The COVID-19 pandemic has further underlined the links between public health and climate change. Now more than ever, we see the critical importance of the green recovery. It is the only way forward to drive sustainable development, and facilitating innovation in key sectors is a fundamental aspect of this journey, one that we are helping to lead at Masdar City."
"The UAE also has in place a National Strategy for Advanced Innovation which is focused on devising innovative solutions in the health, transportation, water, environment, and space technology. This vision is at the heart of Masdar and the reason that Masdar City was developed as a 'greenprint' of sustainable urban living and a center for R&D, innovation and technology. The work being done by companies in Masdar City to develop transformative technologies, is not only preparing for the future, but is creating it, while simultaneously supporting the UAE's goals of driving sustainable and positive change," Balalaa concluded.
Despite the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, Masdar City has continued to welcome new partners, including high-tech sector drivers, the Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), which shapes the R&D strategy in Abu Dhabi, alongside its pillar entities, the Technology Innovation Institute (TII) and ASPIRE, and will continue to welcome regional and global partners in the coming months.
The ATRC joins an already impressive cluster of innovation-driven companies including: Honeywell Innovation Center, an innovation and knowledge-exchange hub designed to advance digital transformation across the oil, gas, petrochemical and infrastructure sectors; G42 Healthcare, which conducted the first pan-Arab clinical trials for an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine and has established the region's largest and most advanced Omics Center of Excellence, which is home to a series of Omics projects; the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) – the first intergovernmental organization to be located in the Middle East; the UAE Space Agency, which made history earlier this year by sending a space craft into Mars's Orbit, making the UAE the first Arab nation, and one of just five in the world to achieve this; the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC); and companies such as Siemens, Siemens Energy, Saint-Gobain, and Tabreed, as well as core tenant, Masdar (Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company).
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