When I talk to my team, I'm like, 'Last ten years were the good old days.' Now, in the age of AI, I can't talk ten years. Yeah, now I talk three years. The next three to five years, it's going to be tough. But I see that all in opportunity.
That's His Excellency, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, CEO of Mubadala, one of the world's most influential sovereign wealth funds. And it's a long-term investor in technologies around the world. Together we talk about why long-term capital sometimes sees the world differently. It has less quarter-to-quarter pressure and its patience matters more today than ever before. We explore how Mubadala's home country, the UAE, has some interesting lessons for us all. Resilience gained over generations: from the collapse of the pearl trade to mastering oil and gas, to preparing for the world's next technological shift. My conversation with Khaldoon Al Mubarak, coming up next on Tools and Weapons.
Khaldoon, thank you for joining me. Here we are in Davos. World Economic Forum 2026.
Thank you so much Brad. I really appreciate the opportunity. You know, beyond our professional relationship we have our friendship, and Davos is always a very interesting starting point for the year. You get a good sense being here on the geopolitics, on the macro economy. I find it to be very efficient.
You lead one of what I think is one of the world's most amazing investment institutions, Mubadala. Tell us about it, because not everybody knows about it.
Mubadala is a sovereign fund owned by the government of Abu Dhabi. I had the privilege, I'm really honored to have been part of the startup team that started this sovereign fund from the beginning, almost 20 years ago. The UAE is an energy-producing nation. Like Singapore, like Norway, like many of these energy-producing countries, the UAE has sovereign funds and historic sovereign funds. ADIA, in our case, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is the biggest one and one of the pioneers. So, when I started with Mubadala it was just, you know, I think one investment and almost a startup. And now over these years we've grown to be, now over almost $380 billion of assets under management, and we're very proud of what we've accomplished there.
People sometimes look at funds like yours and they say you can provide patient capital. What does that mean and how do you think about your philosophy for the investment strategy you pursue?
Yeah, I think some people call it patience, some people call it long-term. When we invest, I have something you don't have, which is I don't have to deal with that quarter-to-quarter pressure. It's a different type of pressure. I think we probably share the same pressure because your shareholders and my shareholder have similar expectations in terms of returns, in terms of performance. But the difference is, is in that Q to Q pressure. In my case, I get judged on performance over three years, five years, ten years. And therefore, our decision making in both investments, deployments and monetizations takes a different lens. And you know that. When you're under the pressure to deliver that quarter, or that half, or at that end of the year, is different when you're taking a long-term trajectory in terms of your decision making. But allows, I think, an advantage in my view in the decision making because you have a bit more room to be patient in decisions sometimes that, if you take that patient approach, there's a better outcome.
If you think back a decade ago and now fast forward back to the moment we're in, what is most different in terms of the way you look at the world, what you see in the world in terms of investment opportunities and investment challenges?
It's harder today, much harder. And it's easy to say that today, but I think generating that return that we all work for, it's a lot harder right now. The world has evolved, I think quite dramatically over these last ten years. Technology has come in in a way that's I think revolutionized everything. It's a tumultuous time really, yeah. I think we've had a great run over these last ten years. We're probably one of the highest performing sovereign funds in terms of returns. But when I talk to my team, I'm like, 'Last ten years were the good old days.' Now, in the age of AI, I can't talk ten years. Yeah, now I talk three years. And maybe five. So, the next three to five years, it's going to be tough. It's going to be exciting. But we have, you know, a long, long, challenging road ahead that I personally, am very excited about. But I know the magnitude of the challenge. And generating these sort of, you know, very strong returns as we've done over the last ten years is more difficult going forward.
Let's talk a little bit about AI and let's actually start with the fact that you are based and you live in the country that our, the Microsoft AI Diffusion Report puts as number one. The world leader when it comes to adoption and use of AI. In fact, our most recent report said that the UAE ended 2025 with 64% of the population using AI. That's number one. Singapore is number two with 60. Then you start to fall dramatically when you look at other countries. It also continues to grow at a rapid rate. Why do you think that people there are embracing it so expansively?
Well, I think it's because it's embraced across the board. You've been to Abu Dhabi many times Brad, so you know that very, very well. Let's start on the government side. Government in the UAE, when it comes to AI-enablement, when it comes to understanding of AI and the embracing of AI, I think probably comes top of the stack in terms of governments around the world. So our government to start with, is, I think, gets it. Gets it and is very forward-leaning on that. You then move into business, corporations, institutions, when it comes to understanding the benefits of that technology, the potential of that technology, and the willingness as businesses, as corporations, as institutions, to actually, you know, jump into that pool. Again, I think I would say a very high grade I'd give to our business community. And then de facto society has really embraced it. Number one in the world on a per capita basis, in terms of AI usage. It's spread across society, business, economy, government. That's I think, a very, you know, unique, I'll give it an edge that the UAE have, in that sense and it really starts from the top. All the way from the top and it goes throughout society.
I think AI adoption requires that people have trust in how it's being developed, how it's being used. And one of the most amazing things I find when I'm in Abu Dhabi, for example, is the feedback loop. Citizens can report things using AI tools to the government. It may be a pothole in the street. You know, it may be some other issue. And then there's a feedback loop, they get information back. And I think that's a little bit even rooted in the traditional culture of Abu Dhabi. Can you say a little bit about that?
Yeah, of course. I mean, this is actually one of the coolest things we have, I think, in the UAE, and Abu Dhabi specifically. We have our app, which is essentially every citizen has on their phone an AI agent, a government agent that basically covers over, at the moment, over 1,100 services going to about 1,300 I think, in the next couple of months. In one platform today, any citizen can cover everything from paying their traffic fines, their health care profile, school of their kids, licenses for, you know, businesses they have, any municipal services, renewals of any forms of licenses from driving licenses, anything, right now at the tip of their finger. And it's incredible. So, that part, to go from the traditional government service, the good old days and the bureaucracy of that to now seconds in your hands. Citizens in the UAE are benefiting from this beautiful technology. So let's say, God forbid, you have an emergency, it's 11 o'clock at night, you slip, you know, break a leg, and you need to go to the emergency. In the normal course of life, your wife or whoever is with you will put you in a car, take you to the closest emergency. Now, it's different. You take a picture of your injury. You plug in. You're able to know, at the moment, what's the closest not just the closest emergency facility around, but where actually there is, let's say, the shortest line where it's going to be quicker to get in, so you might be, you know, maybe the closest hospital is a mile away, but actually the one that has a faster service is maybe two miles away, so you're better off going to the other one rather than going. So that's like the easiest thing. Next thing you know, it'll tell you, well, you know, 'In that particular facility at this moment, there is an orthopedic specialist that specializes in that so rather than go to that hospital, go to this hospital, they're on call right now, go there right now.' And then it plugs in and on your way it's already informed the hospital, it's informed the doctor, they're expecting you. That's all happening in real time. That is incredible. Yeah. It's already in your hand at your disposal. I was at a gathering the other day, and there was a, you know, older man. He was, he's like 92 years old. I've known him, like all my life. I don't think he has a college degree and I'm not so sure if he had even a primary school education. He was talking to me about something and then he pulls out his phone and he's using the app. So that, now, you see a 92 year old man that doesn't have any education. That is now embracing AI at that age and being able to use that in a very proficient way. And that's why the society has embraced it because it's services that they're used to. They were used to doing it in one way, and now they're doing it another way and they're seeing the benefits of it in a very clear and tangible way.
The same service, TAMM, that runs this does have some physical locations, some offices that people can go to if they need technical help with the app. People in the process of getting help with something learn how to use it. It's how you take an entire population on a journey into the future, if you will, and adapt to what people need, rather than just tell people to adapt to what the technology offers.
You know, at the beginning, we anticipated this was going to be a much longer transition. But people adjust very, very fast.
One of the interesting things as I think about AI is there are many great technologies, but not that many that require enormous investments in infrastructure. You know, canals actually did. They were like the first, and then it was railroads, electricity, the telephone, highways, airports. So here we are, this infrastructure stage. How does the thinking that goes into investments in infrastructure differ, for example, from other kinds of technologies you may have invested in or might think about investing in over time?
So, about 100 years ago, our industry that, you know, fueled our economy was basically the pearl diving industry. And it was not, let's say, the most economically attractive industry, but it did okay and our economy was okay. And then we had a first technological disruption: the invention of the artificial pearl. When the Japanese came up with that that economy crashed. So, we suffered the consequence of a technological disruption by not being diverse, or not being ready for what's next. And we were lucky to have another great natural resource, which was oil and gas. And then became another journey of turning that country and that economy into an oil and gas economy. But learning from the lesson of that first disruption, which is, from day one, even as oil and gas reaped the revenue benefits and developed the economy, there was always a diversification strategy from day one. Hence, over the years, even though the flows of that natural resource raised significant revenue for the country, we went from a probably an 80-20 GDP, 80% energy, 20% all the rest, to flip it, you know, in a span of 30 years. But that industry essentially we perfected, which is the business of extracting the oil and gas, refining it, producing barrels of oil, chemicals, and then exporting that. That was our business. Now, when we look at this new technology, the way we think about it is, all right, renewables are going to change the way we think of energy. And rather than fight against the inevitable reality that renewables are real, be it solar, be it wind, be it nuclear, be it fusion, whatever, it's coming. It's going to come and it's going to disrupt this natural resource. We took the view, now we're going to embrace it. And we're going to invest in it. And we're going to invest in it here in the UAE, and we're going to invest in it globally, and we're going to be actually major players in the energy business. And that energy business used to be conventional and now it's all of the above and we're going to be all of the above, and we're going to be very good at that. But then the next iteration of that is, all right, how do we get into this next disruption, which is technology? Now, AI, you know better than me, the fuel of AI is energy. So now how do we intersect as a country and say, alright we take our strengths. What are our strengths? We are able to produce energy, from wind, to solar, to nuclear, to conventional gas, at a very competitive price, at scale, and execute on these projects because that's what we do. We can do that. We have efficient capital that can come in and be deployed in that space, and we get that business. Because in effect, we're now using energy to produce this new barrel, but it's not oil. It's actually intelligence and it's tokenization. And that's our next transition. And in the same vein as renewables, we want to be in that business, not just in the UAE, we can be good at that in the UAE, but we want to be in that business all over the world, with the right partners. And long answer to your question, but that's what we do, and that's our investment strategy and that's what we've been doing over these last couple of years and that's how I see, at least in the next three to five years, what will be a focus of our investment strategy.
