Dubai Municipality has issued new requirements for shared housing, setting minimum bedroom space per occupant and identifying more than 44 areas where buildings may be used for such accommodation.

The Planning and Building Requirements Guide for Shared Housing and Permitted Areas implements Law No. (4) of 2026, which regulates the occupancy and management of shared housing in the emirate.

Approved areas include Al Souq Al Kabeer, Al Ras, Al Warqa 1, Al Barsha 1, Al Muraqqabat and Al Rigga.

Additional locations will be announced once approved, the municipality said.

Guidelines set

Under the guide, bedrooms must provide at least five square metres per person. Each existing building must be allocated to either individual or family accommodation. For family housing, each family must have a separate bedroom with an en-suite bathroom.

The guide also sets requirements for kitchens, sanitary facilities and designated spaces for dining, recreation, laundry and clothes drying, depending on the accommodation category and number of occupants.

New shared housing rules: Compliance date

Property owners and property management and leasing companies have one year from the law’s effective date of September 8, 2026, to bring buildings currently used for shared housing into compliance.

However, that period does not exempt owners from correcting building violations, unauthorised changes of use or conditions that threaten public safety, the municipality said.

The requirements cover new buildings and existing buildings modified for shared housing within permitted areas. Collective labour accommodation is excluded because it falls under separate legislation.

Buildings and villas require a permit before being designated for shared housing, with applications and renewals available through the Build in Dubai platform.

Before permits are issued, compliance with Dubai Civil Defence requirements for fire alarms and firefighting systems, and Security Industry Regulatory Agency requirements for CCTV, must be verified.

The municipality said the framework aims to reduce overcrowding and unregulated residential practices while protecting occupants’ safety and privacy.

Riyadh Air recently unveiled the first images of its first Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner featuring the airline’s indigo livery after the aircraft rolled out of Boeing’s paint facility in Charleston, South Carolina.

The indigo-and-lavender design draws inspiration from the colours of spring desert blooms and Arabic calligraphy and complements the Saudi carrier’s signature pearlescent white livery.

One in every 10 aircraft in Riyadh Air’s fleet is expected to feature the indigo livery as the airline expands its operations.

The aircraft is scheduled for delivery in the near future and is expected to appear at one of the 15 international airports currently served by Riyadh Air.

“Seeing our first Indigo aircraft emerge from the paint shop is a proud moment for Riyadh Air,” CEO Tony Douglas said.

“Inspired by the colours of spring desert blooms and the beauty of Arabic calligraphy, the indigo livery positions our brand with a striking presence that will stand out at airports across the world.”

Douglas said the design, alongside the airline’s pearlescent livery, reflected “a modern, confident Saudi identity, and marks another significant milestone as we have grown to 10 aircraft and 15 destinations in less than four months.”

The unveiling marks another step in Riyadh Air’s fleet expansion as the Saudi carrier builds out its international network.

Riyadh Air’s new non-stop service to Jakarta; ticket sales open

In other news, Riyadh Air announced ticket sales are open for its three-times-weekly service between Riyadh and Jakarta, a key addition to its growing Asian network and its 16th destination on sale, with more destinations set to be announced in the coming days and weeks.

Starting on November 16, the new direct route between Riyadh and Jakarta connects the capitals of two G20 nations at a time of accelerating trade, corporate travel, and religious tourism. According to a statement published by the airline, total bilateral trade reached $6.6bn in 2025 and hit $2.6bn in H1 2026 alone.

The non-stop capital-to-capital service will open a new gateway for religious visitors from Indonesia – the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation.

Read: Riyadh Air opens ticket sales for Pakistan, Philippines routes

The UAE’s Federal Tax Authority (FTA) has set out guidance for multinational companies subject to the country’s 15 per cent minimum top-up tax, as the first major registration deadline under the regime approaches.

The Qualified Domestic Minimum Top-up Tax (QDMTT) applies to UAE entities that form part of multinational enterprise groups with annual global revenue of at least €750m in at least two of the four financial years immediately preceding the relevant fiscal year.

Groups conducting their activities exclusively within the UAE are outside the scope of the rules, regardless of their revenue.

The UAE introduced the QDMTT for financial years beginning on or after January 1, 2025, as part of its implementation of the OECD/G20 Pillar Two framework.

Pillar Two is designed to ensure large multinational groups face an effective tax rate of at least 15 per cent in each jurisdiction in which they operate.

“The issuance of this Guide reflects the Federal Tax Authority’s commitment to providing businesses with clear and practical guidance that supports their understanding of the UAE’s evolving tax framework and enables them to meet their obligations with confidence,” the FTA said.

The guide provides further detail on how businesses should determine whether they fall within the regime, including the treatment of constituent entities, permanent establishments, joint ventures, flow-through entities and hybrid entities.

It also covers registration procedures and the filing of the Pillar Two Information Return.

For in-scope entities with fiscal years ending before April 30, 2026, the registration deadline is November 30, 2026.

The UAE’s domestic top-up tax is intended to allow the country to retain the primary right to tax profits generated by qualifying entities operating in the Emirates.

The UAE was granted “transitional qualified” status for its QDMTT by the OECD in August 2025.

“The UAE’s implementation of Pillar Two reflects the vision of our wise leadership to maintain a competitive, transparent and sustainable economic environment, while ensuring that the national tax system continues to develop in line with international best practices,” the FTA added.

It urged companies that may form part of a multinational group to review their circumstances against the legislation and consult the guidance to understand their registration obligations.

The UAE framework closely follows the OECD’s Global Anti-Base Erosion, or GloBE, rules.

Etisalat is bringing back the name that defined the UAE telecoms group for decades, four years after it rebranded as e&.

The Abu Dhabi-headquartered company has said it will move forward under the Etisalat name as it marks 50 years since its establishment in 1976.

The change comes alongside a new strategy centred on telecoms, AI and business solutions, infrastructure and fintech, with the group also setting out major investment plans for its international network.

Etisalat adopted the e& identity in February 2022 as part of a push to reposition the business beyond traditional telecommunications, creating separate verticals covering areas including enterprise technology, fintech and investment.

Four years later, the group is putting its original name back at the forefront.

“We are Etisalat. We always have been. We always will be,” the company said in a message marking its 50th anniversary.

Etisalat looks back to its roots

Etisalat was founded in 1976, five years after the formation of the UAE, and went on to build much of the country’s telecommunications infrastructure.

Its anniversary campaign looks back at the development of the business from fixed telephone lines and early mobile networks to the arrival of the internet, fibre connectivity and today’s digital services.

The return to the Etisalat name comes as the company looks to position telecoms infrastructure at the centre of its next phase of growth.

The group this week announced plans to increase its international connectivity capacity from around 20 terabits per second to more than 500 Tbps by 2030.

That would represent an increase of more than 25 times current capacity.

The project will include new international routes intended to improve network reliability and cut latency as demand from AI, cloud computing and data centres increases.

It was unveiled in the presence of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice President, Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the Presidential Court, who also witnessed the launch of Etisalat’s 50th anniversary celebrations.

The company described the infrastructure project as the first major commitment under its new strategy.

Jassem Mohamed Bu Ataba Alzaabi, chairman of Etisalat Group, said: “This project reflects our conviction that the UAE should not simply adopt AI, but govern it and build with it.”

Change at the top

The return of the Etisalat name also follows a change in leadership at the group earlier this year.

Hatem Dowidar stepped down as group chief executive at the end of March after six years in the role. He had overseen the company’s 2022 rebrand and a period of international expansion and investment outside its traditional telecoms business.

Masood M. Sharif Mahmood took over as group CEO on April 1, while retaining his position as chief executive of the UAE business, which he has led since 2021.

The leadership change has been followed by signs of a greater focus on the group’s core telecoms operations.

In July, e& agreed to sell its entire 16.2 per cent stake in Vodafone for about $5.95bn. Reuters subsequently reported that Mahmood was reviewing parts of the wider investment portfolio as the company placed greater emphasis on its telecoms businesses.

The group had built up the Vodafone position under Dowidar as part of a wider international investment drive.

The company currently operates across 38 countries and has more than 250 million subscribers worldwide.

Abu Dhabi’s Technology Innovation Institute (TII) has launched a new AI model built to understand Emirati Arabic, including the expressions, idioms and cultural references used in everyday conversation.

Falcon-Emirati, a 7-billion-parameter language model, was unveiled on Wednesday alongside two other AI models focused on speech recognition and Arabic documents.

The three tools can understand the UAE dialect, turn speech in six languages into text and extract Arabic information from images and documents.

TII is the applied research arm of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC).

Falcon-Emirati was developed specifically around the way Arabic is spoken in the UAE, rather than relying only on Modern Standard Arabic.

Faisal Al Bannai, Advisor to the UAE President for Strategic Research and Advanced Technology Affairs and Secretary-General of ATRC, said the development was also about building AI capability within the country.

“Our language belongs in the future we are building. With Falcon-Emirati, we are putting our knowledge and expertise behind that belief. There is real pride in building technology that understands our people. And there is real freedom in having the capability here in the UAE to develop it further, set our own priorities and turn our ambitions into something people can use.”

AI built for Emirati Arabic

Falcon-Emirati is based on TII’s Falcon-H1-Arabic model.

Researchers trained it using native Emirati material, Modern Standard Arabic content covering UAE culture and heritage, and synthetic data developed with Emirati-specific linguistic resources.

TII said the model scored 84.83 per cent on Alyah, a benchmark that tests native Emirati Arabic across everyday language, figurative expressions, heritage knowledge and poetry.

It outperformed the Arabic and multilingual open-source models included in TII’s evaluation, according to the institute.

Falcon-Emirati will be available through the Falcon Chat platform.

Dr Najwa Aaraj, CEO of TII, said local language use needed to be reflected in the development of sovereign AI.

“Sovereign AI capability must reflect the language used in daily life. Emirati Arabic carries distinctive expressions, cultural references and ways of communicating. Falcon-Emirati and Falcon-ASR will help ensure that the next generation of AI understands not only Arabic but how Emirati communities actually speak it.”

Six languages from speech to text

The second model, Falcon-ASR, converts spoken language into written text.

It supports Emirati Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic as well as English, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

Possible uses include meeting and interview transcription, subtitles, multilingual customer service, accessibility tools and other voice-based services.

The model has 1.6 billion parameters. TII said it performed strongly across public Arabic benchmarks and its own tests of Emirati speech.

On the Emirati speech benchmark, it also beat a 30-billion-parameter multimodal model included in the comparison.

Falcon-ASR can also timestamp individual words within an audio file, which could make lengthy recordings easier to search and use.

Reading Arabic documents

Falcon-OCR-Arabic, the third model announced on Wednesday, is designed to read Arabic text and structured information contained in images and documents.

It can identify content including tables, mathematical formulas and separate document sections.

The technology could be used to digitise documents and archives or extract information automatically from large numbers of records.

Dr Hakim Hacid, Chief Researcher at TII’s Artificial Intelligence and Digital Research Centre, said the three models targeted areas where Arabic AI still had scope to improve.

“These capabilities empower developers, researchers and communities across the region to build on Emirati language and culture, while expanding what is possible for Arabic AI more broadly. Across Falcon-Emirati, Falcon-ASR and Falcon-OCR-Arabic, we have applied targeted specialisation to language, speech and document understanding, addressing areas where Arabic AI still has significant room to advance.”

UAE rolls out more homegrown AI

The launches add to a string of new AI models developed in the UAE this year.

In September, Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence’s Institute of Foundation Models launched K2 Horizon, a family of six foundation models ranging from 0.9 billion to 375 billion parameters.

The university released the models with their weights, code, training data and methodology. Smaller versions were developed to work on devices such as phones and smart glasses, while the larger models target more demanding uses.

In July, Abu Dhabi-based Inception42 launched Seraj, an Arabic-focused enterprise AI model developed with Microsoft.

Built on GPT-4.1, Seraj was designed for Arabic-language use across government and business, including different dialects and regional context.

G42 company Inception also launched InceptionClaw in May, an AI assistant aimed at government and business users.

The system can work across tools including email, calendars and project-management platforms to prepare briefs, highlight tasks and surface information requiring attention.

TII, meanwhile, launched Falcon Perception in May.

The 600-million-parameter multimodal model combines visual and language capabilities, allowing it to analyse and interpret information contained in images.