Gulf states have made headlines in recent years by investing heavily in global artificial intelligence players — from OpenAI to Anthropic — but comparatively little capital has flowed into homegrown AI companies in the Middle East. That’s starting to change.

“There's hype, and there is money,” said Nour Al Hassan, founder and CEO of Tarjama, a translation services company pivoting into Arabic-language AI tools. “I have not seen a company that's trying to raise capital in the AI space in the region and struggled in the past year.”  

That list includes her own Tarjama. In May 2025, the Dubai-based firm raised $15 million from regional investors, including Global Ventures, Wamda Capital and others. The funding is intended to help accelerate the rollout of Arabic.AI, a new platform Tarjama launched to offer business solutions for enterprises across a variety of sectors.

Originally founded in 2008 in Jordan, Tarjama is positioning itself at the forefront of Arabic-language AI thanks to a unique edge created by the company’s roots in translation services. Crucially, this has enabled Tarjama to train Pronoia, its own Arabic-focused large language model (LLM).