UAE Launches AI-Powered 'Cyber Factory' to Counter 800,000 Daily Attacks

The UAE Cyber Security Council, in partnership with Abu Dhabi-based CPX Holding, officially launched the 'UAE Cyber Factory' at the fifth edition of the 'Make it in the Emirates' (MIITE) exhibition in May 2026. The initiative represents the country's most ambitious push yet to develop sovereign, AI-powered cyber defence capabilities built and operated entirely on home-grown technology and talent.

The launch comes against a backdrop of intensifying digital threats: the UAE now records more than 800,000 cyber attacks per day, targeting public and private sector organisations across critical infrastructure, financial services, and government networks. The Cyber Factory is designed to directly address this threat at scale, combining advanced AI, next-generation engineering, and a pipeline of national cyber talent to develop and deploy security platforms that are fully sovereign — meaning no reliance on foreign technology stacks.

The initiative arrives as governments worldwide reassess the risks of outsourcing critical digital infrastructure. Nation-state-level cyber threats, supply chain vulnerabilities, and the growing use of AI by malicious actors have accelerated the global shift toward sovereign cybersecurity stacks. The UAE's Cyber Factory positions the country not merely as a consumer of international security products, but as a producer of AI-driven cyber capabilities that can be exported to regional and global partners.

For Gulf enterprises and government entities, the Cyber Factory represents a significant shift in the regional threat landscape calculus. CPX Holding, which already operates a major Security Operations Centre serving clients across the MENA region, will anchor the technical delivery, while the Cyber Security Council sets the national strategic framework. The initiative aligns with the UAE's broader ambition to become a top-10 global digital economy — an objective that depends on watertight, AI-first cyber resilience.

Diverge's enterprise AI deployments operate across sensitive government and financial workflows where data sovereignty and security are paramount. The kind of AI-native security posture being built by the UAE Cyber Factory mirrors the principles that underpin Diverge's own infrastructure — particularly its DivergeInsight analytics platform and sovereign deployment models, which ensure AI runs within client-controlled environments without external data exposure.

The UAE Cyber Factory signals a broader maturation in the region's AI ecosystem: the shift from consuming AI tools to manufacturing them domestically. As AI becomes the primary attack vector and the primary defence mechanism, the countries and enterprises that control their own AI-security stack will hold a decisive strategic advantage. Expect the Cyber Factory model to be replicated across Gulf states as digital sovereignty becomes a top-tier national security priority in the years ahead.