Partnerships Powering AI Advances in Agriculture
11 December 2025, Abu Dhabi: The AI Agriculture Ecosystem Launch in Abu Dhabi showcased new AI technologies that strengthen farmers’ resilience amid a global agricultural crisis.
CGIAR’s global partner network has worked alongside rural communities for over five decades, accumulating unparalleled data, experience and knowledge to deliver technologies that can help tackle today’s agricultural challenges. Yet with 13 Global Research Centers and hundreds of projects, our evidence-based data can be fragmented, siloed, and non-standardized across systems. Now, powered by advances in digital research, CGIAR is teaming up with AI experts like ai71 to unlock 50 years of global data and expertise in an instant. New AI-powered apps and technologies can provide farmers with immediate, accurate, real-time insights and guidance on planting, weather, early warning, resource management, and more, whenever they need them.
“The AI Agriculture Ecosystem is rooted in science and powered by global collaboration,” says Ismahane Elouafi, CGIAR’s Executive Managing Director. “By combining the AI expertise and insights from global partners, the AI Agriculture Ecosystem can develop innovations that strengthen decision-making, guide policies and investments, and accelerate the adoption of digital tools – supporting vulnerable communities in the Global South and farmers in the Global North facing similar challenges.”
Several AI breakthroughs were showcased at the Abu Dhabi AI Agriculture Ecosystem Launch, including CGIAR’s new AI Hub. With AI71 – an Abu Dhabi-based artificial intelligence company – as a core partner, the AI Hub is a collaborative digital workspace designed to test, scale, and incubate AI innovations. It acts as a unified, interoperable digital ecosystem where experts from different sectors and disciplines can pool knowledge and collaborate on agricultural solutions, making data accessible and AI-ready.
“The UAE is harnessing artificial intelligence for global good, to help protect the farmers and communities most exposed to climate volatility,” Said Her Excellency Mariam Almheiri, Head of the International Affairs Office at the UAE Presidential Court. “By connecting our national research and AI capabilities with leading global partners, we are turning science into real tools that reach people on the ground. Through our partnership with the Gates Foundation, we are advancing Agri-AI solutions that support millions of smallholder farmers facing unpredictable weather, helping secure a more stable and hopeful future for communities worldwide.”
Groundbreaking advances delivered by the AI Hub so far include AgriLLM, an open-source AI model offering multilingual, real-time digital advisory that connects farmers, advisors, and policymakers; IWMI’s AI-Water Project that supports water governance, investment and integrated planning to strengthen farmer resilience in the face of droughts and floods – a global dashboard is currently under development for the 2026 UN Water Conference; and the AI Genebank platform that accelerates crop improvement by rapidly screening hundreds of thousands of plant samples for climate-resilient traits, and then linking them to crop research via an interactive chatbot.
“Partnerships are the cornerstone of food systems transformation,” says Sandra Milach, “The AI Hub brings together world-leading AI expertise to boost digital capacity, power innovation, and unlock transformative digital tools to support rural farmers on the frontlines of the agricultural crisis.”
The launch of Abu Dhabi’s AI for Agriculture Ecosystem is a pivotal moment for a global alliance that actively harnesses artificial intelligence to strengthen food security and agricultural resilience worldwide and follows on from the USD 200 million UAE-Gates Foundation partnership announced at COP28 to advance agricultural innovation. This has resulted in four landmark initiatives: the Institute for Agriculture and Artificial Intelligence (IA|AI), the CGIAR AI Hub, AgriLLM, and AIM for Scale. The AI for Agriculture Ecosystem is founded on an alliance of partnerships between the International Affairs Office at the UAE Presidential Court and four Abu Dhabi-based institutions, working with international partners such as the Gates Foundation, CGIAR, the World Bank, and others.
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