Editor’s Note
Dubai’s ambitious ‘Smart Dubai 2030’ vision is rapidly transforming the emirate into a leading global destination. As this article highlights, record tourism numbers and groundbreaking urban innovations—from AI-driven services to major infrastructure projects—are redefining the city’s future.
Dubai is once again capturing the world’s attention. In the first half of 2025 alone, approximately 9.88 million tourists visited, putting it on the cusp of becoming one of the world’s top three tourist destinations. The ‘Smart Dubai 2030’ vision, which integrates artificial intelligence, mobility, and cultural industries, is now in full swing.
Innovations in urban infrastructure, such as the opening of restaurants operated by AI chefs, the completion of a 300-meter bridge, and the launch of direct buses between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, are leading to a restructuring of the economic framework.
Dubai Airport has announced plans to surpass 100 million annual passengers within the next 18 months and has opened up the skies through demonstration flights of eVTOLs (electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft). This vision of integrated mobility connecting air, land, and sea is evolving Dubai from a ‘moving city’ to a ‘self-operating city’.
The axes of diplomacy and industrial cooperation are also being rapidly reshaped.
The Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC), which operates the Dubai Diamond Exchange and free zone functions, has signed a strategic agreement with South Korea’s National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA) in the fields of AI and startups. The Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry has also signed a joint MOU with the Korea International Trade Association (KITA) to strengthen industry-specific business matching and connections with the financial hub.
Furthermore, cooperation between the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) and Hyundai Engineering & Construction on nuclear power, along with visits to South Korea by high-ranking UAE defense officials, indicate that bilateral relations are expanding beyond simple trade to include strategic technology and defense cooperation.
The growth of the culture and tourism industries is also remarkable.
Ahead of the ‘Festival of Lights’, Diwali, Dubai’s Gold Souk and major shopping malls are competing to attract global tourists by linking gold trading with prize events. The ‘Dubai Mallathon’, the world’s largest indoor shopping mall event, set a new Guinness World Record with 40,000 participants.
Simultaneously, the Four Seasons Hotel in the Jumeirah area ranked highly in the Condé Nast Traveller Readers’ Choice Awards, demonstrating a qualitative leap in luxury tourism.
The relocation of sports stars like Cristiano Ronaldo and Roger Federer to Dubai is also a result of the combined appeal of tax breaks, safe security, and its status as a hub for global networks. Dubai is evolving not merely as a symbol of wealth, but as a ‘hybrid city-state’ that combines technology, culture, diplomacy, and finance.
Meanwhile, the opening of the AI-based restaurant ‘WOOHOO’ symbolizes the city’s future vision. In this space where AI handles cooking and operations, human culinary experiences are datafied, and robot chefs learn individual tastes, presenting a new dining paradigm.
Such experiments go beyond mere novelty, aligning with the policy trend to transform Dubai’s industrial structure itself to be AI-centric. With artificial intelligence, tourism, finance, and mobility bundled together, Dubai has positioned itself as a laboratory for a global Fourth Industrial Revolution city, extending beyond the Middle East.
Announcements of the reconstruction of the Trump Tower Dubai, plans to build the world’s highest swimming pool, and the expansion of bridges along Sheikh Zayed Road, all part of a skyscraper boom, function as symbols of the city’s competitiveness.
The expansion of cooperation with South Korea will be a signal flare towards an Asian version of that model and a strategic foundation for K-initiatives to materialize in the Middle East. Dubai’s present is an experimental report on the future city, containing a blueprint for a new civilization where artificial intelligence and people, capital and culture coexist.
