02 | JD Property to build a logistics hub in Abu Dhabi

As of 2026-09-29, the project points to a clear shift: Abu Dhabi is attracting Chinese supply-chain companies through warehousing assets, automation systems and local employment, extending beyond trade flows alone. JD Property has signed an agreement with Khalifa Economic Zones Abu Dhabi Group to develop a 150,000-square-metre warehousing complex at KEZAD Al Ma’mourah. The project value has not been disclosed.

Scheduled for completion in 2028, the facility will include automated warehousing systems and digital operations technology. It will provide logistics infrastructure and customised development services to companies operating in the UAE and internationally. Once operational, the complex is expected to create about 1,000 direct jobs across logistics, distribution and administration, with further employment in manufacturing, retail, transport and support services.

Chinese companies assessing opportunities in UAE warehousing, cross-border fulfilment and logistics technology should also consider the project’s location. Operated by a subsidiary of AD Ports Group, KEZAD’s economic-zone network spans Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, Al Dhafra and East Port Said in Egypt. It serves more than 2,300 investors across 17 industrial sectors. JD Property manages more than 300 infrastructure assets worldwide, covering over 28 million square metres of gross floor area and more than $16 billion in assets under management. The arrival of a long-term infrastructure investor of this scale in KEZAD shows that logistics capacity is expanding alongside industrial-zone investment and supply-chain infrastructure.

Source: The National, 2026-09-28

04 | Abu Dhabi advances sovereign infrastructure for frontier AI

Abu Dhabi’s competition in AI infrastructure now extends beyond computing capacity. Keeping data and models under national jurisdiction, while orchestrating different accelerators through a single environment, has become a design requirement for frontier research platforms.

Core42 built a sovereign, heterogeneous AI cloud for Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, hosted in the UAE. The environment combines NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD, AMD MI210 GPUs and specialised inference architectures, with Kubernetes and Slurm providing unified orchestration. It also brings together high-speed storage, InfiniBand and Ethernet networking, access management, model governance and security controls.

The platform has supported more than five frontier models across the Jais and K2 families. Jais serves an Arabic-speaking community of about 274 million people; Jais Climate was fine-tuned on 1.4 million climate-related instructions; and K2 Think has 32 billion parameters. Chinese AI, compute and data-infrastructure companies considering UAE partnerships will need to address four issues together: hardware compatibility, unified orchestration, data residency and governance controls. Supplying computing capacity alone does not meet the requirements of projects built on this model.

Source: Invent a Better Everyday, 2026-09-27

06 | Saudi Arabia proposes tighter rules for overseas investments

Saudi Arabia’s proposed changes primarily affect investors who use margin financing from Saudi-regulated financial institutions to trade overseas securities. Financial institutions and co-investors should prepare for closer scrutiny of investors’ own-capital contributions, client suitability and product leverage, rather than treating tradability as the only test.

Under the Capital Market Authority proposal, investors would have to fund at least half of a transaction’s value with their own capital. Financial institutions would also need to assess whether certain overseas investments are suitable for clients and would be prohibited from providing margin financing for highly leveraged products or shares in companies whose accumulated losses exceed half of their capital. The proposal is open for consultation until 2026-10-27 and is scheduled to take effect on 2026-11-01. Final requirements remain subject to the authority’s formal publication.

Sico Bank said the measures mainly target higher-risk retail traders using leverage and that the proposed 50% initial margin requirement is broadly consistent with many international markets. Businesses involved in overseas securities allocation for Saudi clients should now review financing arrangements and product coverage, while avoiding treatment of a consultation draft as an effective rule.

Source: AGBI, 2026-09-28

Other updates

  • 08 | Autonomous freight rail company and Agility expand into Gulf markets: Parallel Systems and Agility have entered a strategic collaboration to develop, commercialise, finance and deploy autonomous freight rail systems across the GCC, wider EMEA region and other international markets. Its battery-electric vehicles can operate on existing rail infrastructure and haul intermodal containers for up to 500 miles on a single charge. (Source: Agility)
  • 10 | Abu Dhabi launches adult cardiac surgery and structural heart programmes: SEHA has formally launched the Adult Cardiac Surgery Programme and the Advanced Structural Heart Disease Interventional Cardiology Programme at Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Mohammed Medical City in Al Ain, expanding access to specialist care for complex cardiovascular conditions in Abu Dhabi. (Source: ZAWYA, 2026-09-28)
  • 13 | Kuwait court annuls delivery penalties, raising enforcement concerns: Kuwait’s Administrative Court annulled the penalties established under Article 15 of Ministerial Decision No. 109/2026 while leaving the new caps on delivery fees and commissions in place. The court held that the Minister of Commerce and Industry could not create new punitive administrative penalties without an explicit legislative basis. (Source: Kuwait Times, 2026-09-27)

Last updated: September 2026. This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or tax advice.