Riyadh spent the week under fire, and its flagship investment conference was moved to 2027. In the same days, a global private equity firm opened in ADGM, a US retail investing platform chose DIFC as its regional base, and UAE investors were reported to be leading a round for one of the world's largest AI companies.
None of that is a contradiction. It is what a region looks like when capital keeps moving and the question becomes where it is held, booked and settled. That is the thread through this first edition.
Artificial Intelligence
Emirates NBD said on 19 October it will be the first bank in the region to run OpenAI's models on in-country UAE infrastructure. On 22 October, CNBC reported that OpenAI is close to an up to $30 billion round at a $1.25 trillion pre-money valuation, led by UAE investors alongside Coatue, with signatures targeted by the end of next week. The next day, G42 signed agreements in Athens to explore an AI factory in Greece, part of 18 UAE–Greece agreements valued at €12.75 billion.
The signal is that Abu Dhabi now participates in AI at three levels at once: capital into the frontier labs, compute at home, and compute exported. Regulated institutions running models on domestic infrastructure is the part that changes procurement and data decisions for anyone operating here.
Markets & capital
Advent International opened an office in ADGM on 21 October. The National reported that assets under management in ADGM grew 54 per cent year on year in the first half of 2026. Gulf News reported that the UAE ranked first among emerging family office destinations, with 1,408 family-related entities in DIFC at the end of June, up 36 per cent.
Dubai Investments will float 20 per cent of DIP Holding, the first IPO on the Dubai Financial Market this year. Subscriptions run from 27 October to 3 November, with trading expected from 11 November. Bloomberg reported that Mubadala is in talks, within a Centerbridge-led consortium, to acquire Canaccord's UK wealth business.
Managers and family capital are still arriving, and the primary market is reopening cautiously. The DIP book will be a useful reading of local appetite in a week like this.
Digital assets & finance
On 22 October, Ziina announced a Retail Payment Services Category III licence from the Central Bank of the UAE, adding to an earlier authorisation for international transfers through digital channels. The same day, Robinhood received DFSA authorisation and named DIFC its regional headquarters, with a product launch planned for 2027. In Doha, the Qatar Financial Centre and QNB signed an agreement to shorten corporate account opening for newly licensed QFC firms.
Late in the previous week, the Central Bank of the UAE met the Monetary Authority of Singapore to discuss cross-border payments and trade settlement.
Account opening remains the slowest step for most new entities in the Gulf. When a financial centre builds a direct route to a bank, that matters more to a new fund or family office than most headline licences.
Energy & infrastructure
During President Macron's visit, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain agreed to supply France with diesel, channelled through TotalEnergies. Adnoc Refining signed two contracts with Technip Energies, one for refining capacity and one for sustainable aviation fuel. A UAE delegation including Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi Investment Office and AD Ports Group closed a five-day visit to China focused on clean energy, nuclear, storage and inward investment.
TAQA returned to the debt market for the first time since 2024, raising $1.75 billion, including $1.1 billion of green notes. EnterpriseAM reported final orders above $5.7 billion.
Gulf energy is being used as diplomacy, and Abu Dhabi credit is still finding deep demand. Both point to an issuer and counterparty base that remains open for business.
Defence & space
On 20 October, the UAE and France signed an intergovernmental agreement on the Rafale F5 standard and a strategic defence partnership framework. President Sheikh Mohamed and President Macron toured Edge Group manufacturing sites at Tawazun Industrial Park. On 23 October, DIFC's Geospatial Accelerator matched ten international space data companies with organisations including FADA, part of Edge Group, and the National Maritime Centre.
Defence partnerships here now come with industrial and technology terms attached. For a foreign firm, the route in is increasingly through those named programmes and partners rather than open tender.
Two hubs, one treasury.
On 19 October, the FII Institute postponed its tenth Future Investment Initiative, due to open in Riyadh on 26 October, to 2027. It did not cite security. AFP reported that Riyadh government staff were told to work from home and that firms in the King Abdullah Financial District asked employees to do the same, as Houthi missile and drone attacks continued.
It would be easy to read this as Riyadh losing and Dubai or Abu Dhabi winning. That is not our view. Saudi Arabia's long-term programme is unchanged, and capital is still being committed there; Arada announced a $3.8 billion residential project in Riyadh this week. The lesson is narrower and more practical.
A business that runs its Gulf treasury from one city, through one bank, with signatories in one place, has a single point of failure. The week showed how quickly a capital city can move to remote working and how quickly flights can be constrained. The businesses best placed to keep paying suppliers and salaries through a week like this are those that already hold a second operating account, a second set of signatories and a settlement route that does not depend on one location.
For a fund, a family office or a CFO with regional operations, the practical questions are three. Whether the business can receive, hold and pay out in more than one Gulf jurisdiction today, not in six weeks. Whether bank relationships and signatory mandates are current in each. And if one office closed tomorrow, who could release a payment, and from where.
ADGM, DIFC and the QFC are each making account opening and licensing faster, as this week's news shows. That makes a second hub easier to arrange now. It is still slower to arrange in a crisis than before one.