admin The move gives the US-based company a licensed presence in DIFC as it seeks to expand demand for AI inference systems across the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. Positron AI has raised more than $300 million, including a $230 million Series B round completed this year at a valuation above $1 billion, strengthening its position among a new class of AI chip and infrastructure companies trying to reduce the cost and power burden of running artificial intelligence models.
The company’s Dubai presence comes as inference, the process through which trained AI models generate responses and perform tasks in real-world use, becomes a larger driver of computing demand. Training has dominated the first phase of the generative AI investment cycle, but commercial deployment is shifting attention to systems that can handle high-volume model use at lower cost, with better memory capacity and more efficient energy consumption.
Positron AI develops purpose-built hardware and software for inference workloads. Its first-generation server, Atlas, is designed to support large language model inference for small and medium-sized models of up to 500 billion active parameters. The company says Atlas can deliver performance comparable to Nvidia DGX-H100 systems while using less power and operating at lower cost, although such performance claims remain subject to market testing and customer validation.
The company’s next-generation product, Titan, is scheduled for delivery in the first quarter of 2027 and is expected to support frontier AI models. Positron AI is also developing Asimov custom silicon, aimed at memory-intensive applications such as video, trading, long-context model use and very large-scale AI systems. The company has positioned memory density and energy efficiency as central points of differentiation against traditional graphics processing unit-based infrastructure.
Husni Khuffash, managing director for MENA at Positron AI, said the DIFC presence reflects the company’s commitment to power-efficient and deployable inference solutions. He said establishing operations at the financial centre would allow Positron to work more closely with industry, regulators and partners while contributing to Dubai’s ambition to build competitive digital and AI capabilities.
DIFC has become a magnet for financial technology, artificial intelligence and innovation companies seeking regional access, regulatory proximity and links to capital. The centre hosts thousands of active registered firms, including banks, asset managers, insurers, brokerage firms, wealth managers, hedge funds and technology ventures. Its innovation ecosystem has expanded as Dubai positions itself as a global base for AI adoption in finance, professional services and enterprise operations.
Mohammad Alblooshi, chief executive of DIFC Innovation Hub, said Positron AI’s arrival adds to the Dubai AI Campus ecosystem and supports the centre’s plans to evolve into an AI-native jurisdiction. The company’s focus on inference infrastructure fits with Dubai’s push to develop practical AI deployment, governance frameworks and trusted digital services across regulated industries.
The expansion also reflects intensifying competition in AI hardware. Nvidia remains the dominant supplier of advanced AI accelerators, but customers have been looking for alternatives because of high costs, supply constraints, energy requirements and concerns over dependence on a single supplier. Major technology companies and specialist start-ups are investing heavily in inference platforms as AI moves from experimentation to large-scale commercial use.
Positron AI’s funding round was backed by investors including ARENA Private Wealth, Jump Trading and Unless, with participation from Qatar Investment Authority, Arm, Helena, Valor Equity Partners, Atreides Management, DFJ Growth, Resilience Reserve, Flume Ventures and 1517. The investor mix points to demand from both financial markets and infrastructure players for systems capable of supporting high-throughput, low-latency AI workloads.
Dubai’s appeal to AI infrastructure firms is reinforced by wider economic policy. DIFC’s planned Zabeel District expansion is designed to increase office, residential, hospitality and innovation capacity, with space allocated for future technologies and an AI campus. The wider Dubai AI Campus is being positioned to host hundreds of companies, attract investment and train thousands of professionals as the city tries to capture a larger share of global AI spending.
For Positron AI, the DIFC office is expected to serve as a regional base for engagement with enterprise customers, financial institutions, sovereign technology programmes and infrastructure partners. The company has indicated that more offices in the region will follow, suggesting that Dubai is being used as the first stage of a broader international expansion rather than a single representative outpost.
