At the Inception Institute of Artificial Intelligence – IIAI, we are driving excellence and leadership of AI research in the UAE and the wider world to promote economic growth, foster innovation and improve healthcare and people’s lives.


About Us

IIAI is leading in fundamental and applied research that pushes the boundaries of AI knowledge and its application for solving complex problems in various domains. We believe that AI is the key for tackling most challenging real-world problems.

Our applied research teams are working with experts in different areas to contribute to real-world solutions. For example, we are building a world-leading video understanding platform that can unlock a new era of how to effectively utilize monitoring and control devices with highly sophisticated video analytics. This technology can be deployed for face detection and annotation, object identification and tracking, scene analysis and tagging, human behavior analysis and content enhancement

Joint research collaboration was initiated with leading hospitals in the region, such as Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, VPS Healthcare Group, and Abu Dhabi Health Services Company on applying cutting-edge machine learning and computer vision techniques to revolutionize the healthcare industry through medical image computation and analysis.

IIAI attracts exceptionally talented and highly motivated researchers and engineers from around the world in the areas of computer vision, machine learning and medical imaging to work across disciplines on both fundamental and applied research.


Our Mission

  • Make great leaps in computer vision and artificial intelligence research in order to solve real-world problems and accelerate innovation.
  • Publish prolifically at top-ranking AI conferences and in leading journals as a premier thought leader.
  • File actively for AI technology and AI-related patents on a global basis.
  • Promote heavily the transferability of our research findings and engineering results.
  • Advise the national government and support its oversight of the entire AI ecosystem in the country.


The Company

IIAI was founded in early 2018 with the focus on breakthroughs in various areas of AI research. The institute is led by Professor Ling Shao, who obtained his PhD in Computer Vision from the University of Oxford and was also Chair Professor of Computer Vision and Machine Learning at the University of East Anglia, UK. Situated in the central business area of Abu Dhabi, IIAI aims to employ the best researchers and engineers in the field of AI with varied interests and backgrounds from across the globe.