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Rami Al-Saadi

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PUBLISHED BY ICN PRESS

  • Dubai opened free public rides in driverless taxis across Umm Suqeim and Jumeirah on July 15, 2026.
  • Passengers book through the Uber and Apollo Go apps, with WeRide and Apollo Go running the technology.
  • RTA’s first commercial phase covers 100 vehicles, with room to grow as demand rises.
  • Free pricing has no disclosed end date, and later reporting shows a small fare has started to appear.

A single line on the RTA’s social feed told residents their next ride might arrive with no one at the wheel. Dubai is ready with a free autonomous taxi service, and the offer began in two neighbourhoods that hug the coast. The Roads and Transport Authority opened public rides in Umm Suqeim and Jumeirah, both close to the beaches, on July 15, 2026.

Riders reach the vehicles through two apps rather than an RTA channel. Uber customers pick the Autonomous option and receive a WeRide car when one is free nearby. Apollo Go users book inside that company’s own app. Fleet allocation depends on how many vehicles sit inside the active zone at the time.

The split behind the wheel is worth noting. Tawasul Transport handles dispatch and operational control for WeRide taxis booked through Uber. Dubai Taxi Company manages local fleet needs for Apollo Go. The technology firms run the driving systems. The licensed operators handle the ground work under RTA supervision.

This Dubai driverless taxi rollout removes something the earlier trips carried. When Uber first offered WeRide rides in December 2025, a vehicle specialist sat inside. The current free service drops that specialist and completes the move to fully autonomous operation.

From testing to public roads

The path here was slow and deliberate. RTA started commercial operations on March 30, 2026, after trials on set roads. By September 2025, more than 60 vehicles from Apollo Go, WeRide and Pony.ai were already running in Jumeirah and Umm Suqeim.

Apollo Go Dubai began with 50 RT6 vehicles used for testing and data collection. Agreements signed in April 2025 made Dubai the company’s first operating market outside mainland China and Hong Kong. Each RT6 carries 40 sensors and detectors. By April 2025, Apollo Go had logged more than 150 million kilometres of safe driving and over 10 million autonomous trips across several cities.

WeRide ran about 150 autonomous vehicles across the Middle East by December 2025, including more than 100 robotaxis. Anyone asking how to book driverless taxi Dubai rides will find the answer sits inside apps they already use.

What the cars actually do

The autonomous taxi Dubai fleet leans on artificial intelligence, high-definition maps and deep learning. Onboard systems read the road in real time and make driving choices without a person. The software handles intersections, signals, pedestrians and nearby cars while following road rules. These vehicles share open roads with live traffic.

The bigger target

Every robotaxi Dubai adds points toward one number. Dubai’s Self-Driving Transport Strategy aims for autonomous operation across 25 per cent of all journeys by 2030. The strategy covers several transport modes, not taxis alone.

Mattar Al Tayer, Director General and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors at RTA, named licensing, infrastructure and operating rules as core requirements back in April 2025. Dubai’s population passed four million residents by December 2025, which lifts demand for taxis and app-based mobility.

The free window has limits Dubai has not spelled out. RTA has not disclosed operating hours, wider route boundaries, or an end date for free pricing. Published plans place 100 vehicles in the first phase and up to 1,000 Apollo Go units within three years. Later reporting suggests a Dh5 fare has since appeared on Apollo Go, a sign the free period may be short. Coverage will widen as demand, service quality and regulatory readiness allow.

TAGS
  • Apollo Go, Dubai, Robotics, RTA

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Hub71 Expands Initiate Programme
  • Hub71

Hub71, Abu Dhabi’s global tech ecosystem, is expanding Initiate, its early-stage founder programme, after attracting more than 5,500 applications since launch. A startup has already been selected to begin its venture-building journey with Initiate at Hub71, receiving support to refine its products, validate market demand and prepare for commercial growth.

Through Initiate, Hub71 is combining venture builder expertise with practical founder development. Founders receive hands-on support to refine ideas, validate opportunities and build new ventures, while aspiring entrepreneurs can access workshops designed to develop the skills, networks and confidence needed to take their first steps towards building a startup.

Initiate has attracted almost 5,500 applications, reflecting strong demand from aspiring founders looking to turn early-stage ideas into viable ventures. This momentum has extended into the programme’s workshop series, with 500 aspiring founders attending seven sessions across July and August focused on problem validation, customer discovery, venture-building and co-founder identification. Delivered by Hub71 partners, the workshops equip aspiring founders with practical tools, industry insights and opportunities to build connections within Abu Dhabi’s startup ecosystem, helping them turn ideas into viable ventures.

Hub71 has also added Disrupt.com and TMC2 MEA to Initiate’s venture-builder network, expanding founders’ access to technical, commercial and investor expertise across a wider set of sectors.

Mohammad Alkhoori, Head of Startup Journey and Communications, Hub71, said: “Demand for early-stage support in Abu Dhabi is growing quickly. Every founder’s journey starts with an idea, but turning that idea into a successful startup requires the right guidance at the right time. Through Initiate, we are giving aspiring entrepreneurs and early-stage founders access to experienced venture builders and a collaborative ecosystem that helps them validate ideas, build ventures, and take their next steps with confidence.”

Marking an early milestone for the programme, Hub71 has selected a startup to advance through Initiate, aligned with a priority sector for Abu Dhabi’s economy. Prism56, an AI-driven platform developed by Fikra Ventures to automate venture capital deal evaluation and investment committee workflows, has progressed from concept to minimum viable product and will now move into validation and pilot deployment. As a studio-led startup, Prism56 will continue to receive tailored venture-building support, mentorship and resources from Fikra Ventures to support its path to commercialisation. The startup will also receive licensing and office space support from Hub71 for one year, alongside access to its wider ecosystem of over 150 corporate, government and investment partners, service providers and founder community.

Through Initiate, Hub71 supports founders at the ideation and pre-seed stages by combining venture builder expertise with practical founder development, helping them validate ideas, develop business models and prepare their ventures for growth. Startups completing Initiate are positioned to progress into Hub71’s Access Programme, forming a clear pathway from idea to growth within Hub71’s broader tech ecosystem.

By supporting more founders as they build scalable ventures, Hub71 is strengthening Abu Dhabi’s pipeline of high-growth startups and reinforcing the Emirate’s position as a global hub for innovation and entrepreneurship.

About Hub71

A global tech ecosystem championing startup growth from Abu Dhabi. The extensive ecosystem brings together renowned corporations, national champions, and prominent investors to help founders grow and scale disruptive technology companies globally from the UAE capital. The aim is to shape a future that knows no bounds.

  • 3 min read
Meta's Bombastic $17 Billion
  • META

Meta’s bombastic $17 billion settlement closes one of the largest child safety fights the tech industry has faced. The company agreed to pay $16.68 billion after 47 states and U.S. territories accused it of designing Instagram and Facebook to hook young users. State attorneys general said Meta built features meant to “entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens.” Meta denies wrongdoing. Still, the numbers tell their own story here.

Think of the child safety settlement as a bill for a decade of design choices. Executives built products that kept teens scrolling. Regulators decided that came at a price. That price now stretches across ten years of payments, plus a new rulebook for how Instagram and Facebook must treat anyone under 18.

New Limits Reshape Instagram and Facebook for Teens

Under the deal, under-18 users face a firm two-hour daily cap on Facebook and Instagram. Push notifications go dark during school hours. Access shuts off completely between midnight and 6 a.m. Age checks get tougher too, closing gaps that let younger kids slip past sign-up screens.

The Instagram and Facebook teen restrictions go further than time limits. Teen accounts will no longer show likes or other engagement counts. That single change targets a mechanism long tied to teen social media addiction lawsuit claims: the pull of watching a number climb. Strip away the number, and the pull weakens. Meta also agreed to tighten controls around content that promotes eating disorders or self-harm.

Regulators leaned hard on COPPA violations as part of their case. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act bars companies from collecting data on kids under 13 without parental consent. States alleged Meta gathered that data anyway, and that some of it fed machine learning and generative AI systems. That claim links Meta’s bombastic $17 billion settlement to a bigger question: how AI training pipelines treat data from underage users across the industry.

TikTok and YouTube Hold the Next $5 Billion

Here’s the twist. About $5 billion of the total stays locked unless TikTok and YouTube sign onto similar rules, including one-hour daily limits, nighttime curbs, and stronger age verification. Each platform would owe roughly $5 billion of its own if it joins.

Meta published an open letter urging both rivals to come aboard, arguing teens who get limited on one app simply hop to another. That’s a fair point. A single-platform curfew doesn’t mean much if the crowd moves next door anyway. Real TikTok and YouTube teen protections would need to land across the entire industry to change teen behavior at scale.

For now, Wall Street shrugged. Meta shares rose about 1 percent on the news, which suggests investors see this as a manageable cost rather than a real threat. Put that $17 billion against Meta’s $201 billion in 2025 revenue, and the settlement equals roughly 8.5 percent of one year’s sales. Spread over a decade, the yearly hit shrinks further.

Meta’s bombastic $17 billion settlement isn’t only about the check it writes. It’s the products it now has to rebuild. Time limits, curfews, hidden like counts, tougher age gates: these become permanent fixtures on two of the world’s largest social apps. Whether TikTok and YouTube follow will decide if this becomes an industry standard or stays a Meta-only fix.

  • 3 min read
OpenAI's executive departures continue
  • OpenAI

OpenAI’s executive departures continue, and the newest one hits a corner of the company that decides how fast its AI can grow. The Wall Street Journal reported that Chris Malone, the OpenAI head of data centers, left last week. He joined in March 2025 after more than a decade at Google and nearly five years at Meta, so his run at the lab stayed short.

Picture what that seat holds. Every AI model needs computing power, and that power needs buildings packed with servers. The person steering that work holds one of the most watched jobs in the field. When they leave, people pay attention.

A short-lived reorganization?

Before Malone left, OpenAI changed the shape of his role. He stopped reporting to president Greg Brockman and began reporting to vice president Sachin Katti, who took over the group. In a statement, OpenAI said it had “recently reorganized” its infrastructure organization to match the scale and pace of its work. The company said it keeps a deep data center team with clear leadership.

Several leaders now share the load. Uday Ruddarraju runs the data center team. Brent Mayo handles build and delivery. Spas Lazarov, a veteran of the data center and energy sectors, leads all data center engineering.

Why OpenAI’s executive departures continue to draw scrutiny

Malone is not walking out alone. His exit follows a long run of OpenAI executive departures, and Business Insider counted 13 in 2026, with several in the past month. These are not junior staff. They sit near the top. OpenAI’s executive departures continue at a pace few large companies would shrug off.

Two weeks ago, OpenAI replaced chief revenue officer Denise Dresser after roughly eight months. Days before that, longtime chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said he would leave to “start something new,” though he shared no plans. About a month earlier, Fidji Simo stepped down as the company’s second-in-command to recover from a “chronic illness.” She stays on as an adviser.

The safety and ethics side has thinned too. OpenAI lost its head of ethics, Chloé Bakalar, in July. Reports also said the company disbanded its preparedness team, the unit that studied whether its models could cause catastrophic harm. Some leaders left because their projects closed. Bill Peebles, who ran the shuttered image tool Sora, was one. Kate Rouch, the former chief marketing officer, left in April for health reasons.

What the OpenAI executive exodus means before the IPO

The company plays down the OpenAI executive exodus. Brockman has said the bright spotlight on the company means every exit gets picked apart in a way rivals avoid. There is truth in that. Even so, the pattern raises real questions.

Reporting from CNBC and Bloomberg points to a shift in strategy. The company has leaned less on the Stargate project and moved toward leasing data center space from cloud providers. That change helps explain the reshuffle around Malone’s team.

Timing sharpens the worry. OpenAI’s public listing, once expected this year, is now reported to be pushed to 2027. A looming OpenAI IPO in 2027 brings a hard look at the numbers. Reporting has questioned whether the company is overvalued and whether its profit can match the huge sums flowing in. As OpenAI’s executive departures continue, investors will weigh what the churn says about the company, while the people still inside keep the work moving.

  • 3 min read
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