Why Technology Could Define The Next Phase Of UAE-Germany Relations

Germany has industrial depth. The UAE has capital, digital infrastructure and an appetite for rapid deployment. Bringing the two together could turn an established economic relationship into a technology partnership built around applied AI, advanced manufacturing and the industries of the future.

Artificial intelligence has generated no shortage of ambitious national strategies. The harder question is what happens when the technology leaves the data centre.

How does AI improve a production line, optimise an energy grid or manage a complex logistics network? How does a promising technology become something that can be manufactured, deployed and sold at scale?

These questions provide a useful way of looking at the next phase of relations between Germany and the United Arab Emirates.

President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s state visit to Germany this week comes as the two countries seek to put technology much closer to the centre of a partnership historically built around trade, energy and investment. The agenda now encompasses artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, digital infrastructure, robotics and other emerging technologies.

The logic is not difficult to see.

Germany remains one of the world’s strongest industrial economies. Its advantages lie not simply in research or invention, but in the dense ecosystem that connects engineering companies, manufacturers, universities, specialised suppliers and the Mittelstand. That capacity to turn technical knowledge into reliable industrial processes is particularly valuable as AI moves beyond consumer applications and into factories, transport systems, energy networks and physical infrastructure.

The UAE approaches the same technological transition from a different direction. It has made digital infrastructure and artificial intelligence central to its economic diversification, alongside a wider effort to attract capital and companies into advanced manufacturing, technology and other new-economy sectors. It also offers access to investment capital and a pivotal geographic position linking European companies with markets across the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

That creates a potentially useful division of strengths: Germany can provide industrial and engineering depth, while the UAE can contribute capital, infrastructure, connectivity and the ability to help emerging technologies scale.

Her Excellency Lana Nusseibeh, the UAE’s Minister of State, put the ambition plainly in remarks in Berlin: “The aim is not just to exchange technology, but to build together.”

That distinction matters.

International technology partnerships can easily become exercises in selling products into one another’s markets. A more ambitious model would involve joint development: connecting researchers and universities with companies and investors, developing commercial applications together and building businesses capable of expanding beyond either country.

Artificial intelligence is probably the clearest test case.

Germany has considerable expertise in robotics, automation, precision engineering and complex manufacturing. The UAE has invested heavily in AI capabilities and digital infrastructure and has set itself the goal of becoming a global leader in artificial intelligence by 2031. Bringing those strengths together makes most sense not in another general-purpose chatbot, but in industrial AI: machine learning and automated systems applied to manufacturing, heavy engineering, energy, transport, logistics and supply chains.

This is also where technology policy begins to merge with industrial strategy.

For Germany, the challenge is not a lack of technical expertise. It is maintaining industrial competitiveness while manufacturing becomes more automated, software-intensive and capital-intensive. AI and robotics offer productivity gains, but deploying them across an economy dominated by sophisticated physical industry requires investment, experimentation and the ability to integrate new digital tools with existing machinery and processes.

For the UAE, the challenge is almost the inverse. The country has built an increasingly sophisticated digital economy and wants to deepen its domestic industrial base. Partnerships with German manufacturers and research institutions could help translate investment in AI and emerging technologies into more physical industrial capability.

There are already signs that the relationship is moving in this direction.

At GITEX Europe in Berlin in 2025, a UAE delegation brought Emirati technology companies and start-ups working in areas including AI, climate technology, digital health, smart cities and industrial innovation. The exercise was significant less for its scale than for the model it suggested: direct links between the two innovation ecosystems, allowing Emirati technology companies to enter Europe while giving German businesses another route into Middle Eastern and wider regional markets.

Start-ups could become an important part of that relationship. Germany has excellent technical universities, research institutes, established industrial companies and a mature innovation ecosystem. The UAE has developed a strong environment for venture funding, attracting international talent and scaling companies regionally. Connecting those systems creates opportunities in fields ranging from cybersecurity and health technology to smart cities and climate tech.

Cybersecurity demonstrates another dimension of the same argument. As factories, energy networks and logistics systems become more digital, protecting industrial technology is increasingly inseparable from deploying it. Cooperation between the UAE Cyber Security Council and Siemens already includes plans for a joint centre focused on operational technology cybersecurity, the systems that control critical infrastructure and industrial processes.

Clean energy belongs in the technology story too.

Hydrogen, battery storage, smarter electricity grids and industrial decarbonisation all depend on engineering and technological deployment as much as energy policy. Germany brings industrial technology and a large market seeking lower-carbon solutions; the UAE combines energy expertise with capital and an increasing presence in renewable power. The potential is therefore not simply for one country to supply energy to the other, but to develop technologies, manufacturing capacity and supply chains around the transition.

The state visit is intended to give this technological relationship more structure. Her Excellency Nusseibeh said the two countries would establish a dedicated framework for deeper cooperation on technology and digitalisation, bringing these areas into the core of the bilateral relationship. The objective, she said, is to connect “researchers, universities, entrepreneurs and investors” and turn ideas into scalable businesses–an ambition which could make technology far more than another area of expanding UAE-German cooperation, but rather an organising principle for the next phase of the two countries’ relationship.