Abu Dhabi AI Weather Forecasting Course Trains Officials From 15 Countries to Help Farmers

The five-day course runs from November 9 to 13 and is hosted by the International Affairs Office at the UAE Presidential Court. It is organised by Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) and the University of Chicago with the Agricultural Innovation Mechanism for Scale (AIM for Scale) and the UAE's National Centre of Meteorology. Participants come from national meteorological and hydrological services and from agriculture ministries.

The programme sits within the Abu Dhabi AI Ecosystem for Global Agricultural Development, launched in December 2025. That effort builds on the $200 million partnership between the UAE and the Gates Foundation announced at COP28, and aims to get AI-powered weather information to 100 million smallholder farmers by 2030. AI forecasting models can run on far less computing power than traditional numerical weather prediction, which is part of their appeal to national weather services with small budgets.

The first cohort, in 2025, brought together Bangladesh, Chile, Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria. This year Bolivia, Colombia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone and the UAE have joined.

The course has two tracks. One covers deploying AI forecasting models and checking how well they perform. The other covers turning model output into advice farmers can act on, such as crop management guidance and preparation for extreme weather. Each country team is expected to leave with a first roadmap for building AI forecasting into its national weather service.

Nvidia has donated 14 Dell Pro Max GB10 workstations to participating government institutions so they can keep working on the models once officials return home.

Abdulla Ahmed Al Mandous, president of the World Meteorological Organization and director-general of the National Centre of Meteorology, said AI was "creating new opportunities to deliver more accurate, timely, and actionable information", particularly for weather-sensitive sectors such as agriculture.

Fatema AlMulla, head of international relations at the International Affairs Office, said the value of AI lies in turning scientific advances into "practical solutions that make a tangible difference in farmers' lives".

Paul Winters, executive director of AIM for Scale and a professor at the University of Notre Dame's Keough School of Global Affairs, said the real test of the technology is "what these advances mean for farmers".

The course ends on November 13. With 15 countries trained over two cohorts, the programme needs another 15 by 2028 to meet its target.