A New Challenger Appears in the AI Arena
Abu Dhabi just threw a serious hat into the global AI ring — and it’s not messing around. The Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) has revealed K2 Think, a new reasoning model that dares to spar with the big names: OpenAI and China’s DeepSeek.
The twist? This model isn’t a heavyweight in size. In fact, it’s leaner — running at just 32 billion parameters compared to DeepSeek’s jaw-dropping 671 billion. Yet, according to its creators, it still punches in the same league. Abu Dhabi news doesn’t get geekier than this.
What Makes K2 Think Different?
K2 Think was crafted on top of Alibaba’s open-source Qwen 2.5 model and tested using Cerebas hardware. The UAE’s AI darling G42, backed by Microsoft, played co-pilot in its creation.
Benchmarks don’t lie, and the team claims K2 Think shines in math (AIME24, AIME25, HMMT25, OMNI-Math-HARD), coding (LiveCodeBenchv5), and science (GPQA-Diamond). Basically, if AI exams existed, this model’s the kid everyone wants to copy from.
How? Through clever tricks like chain-of-thought fine-tuning (teaching the model to think step by step) and test-time scaling (giving it more compute power when solving problems).
As Hector Liu, director at MBZUAI, put it: “We treat it more like a system than just a model.” Translation: they’re not just building, they’re constantly tinkering.
Why This Matters Beyond Tech Circles
Let’s be real — AI isn’t just about robots doing math homework. It’s about power, prestige, and positioning on the world stage.
So far, the AI race has been dominated by the U.S. and China. But the UAE clearly wants in. By rolling out something like K2 Think, it signals to the world: “We’re not just watching — we’re competing.”
This move is part of Abu Dhabi’s bigger game plan to diversify its economy and flex its muscles in geopolitics. With G42 already making waves, and rival Saudi Arabia launching its own AI firm, the Gulf is shaping up to be the world’s newest AI battlefield. For readers curious about how this shift is opening new opportunities, check out the Top Career Options in Artificial Intelligence shaping Abu Dhabi’s future tech workforce.
