ADMAF, G42 and MBZUAI have launched the G42 Advanced Technologies Art Award, open to UAE-based creatives until 14 August 2026, with shortlisted artists invited to study at an AI university. Beyond the award itself, it signals how quickly creative and AI-technical skills are converging in the UAE — a real consideration for families guiding a child's subject choices.
What Happened?
The Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation (ADMAF), in collaboration with G42 and Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), has launched the G42 Advanced Technologies Art Award. ADMAF describes it as "a competitive programme supporting UAE-based cross-disciplinary creatives to develop artworks that integrate advanced technologies," encouraging projects that "explore cultural heritage, reinforce national identity and engage with global conversations at the intersection of art, science and technology."
Applications are open until 14 August 2026. According to the launch announcement, up to six shortlisted applicants will be invited to join MBZUAI's coursework classes for one week — gaining conceptual and technical grounding, alongside the ethical considerations of creating work with AI — and the winning piece will be presented at Abu Dhabi Festival 2027. The open call is for adult UAE-based artists, not school students, and no prize amount has been published.
What This Means for UAE Families
Taken on its own, an art award for adult creatives is not school news. What makes it worth a UAE family's attention is the direction it points in: one of Abu Dhabi's most established cultural institutions is now sending shortlisted artists through an AI university's classrooms. That is a small but telling sign of how deliberately the UAE is fusing creative and technical disciplines — the same country that appointed the world's first Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence in 2017 and has since pushed AI into classrooms from the school level up under its national AI strategy.
For parents, the practical message is about subject breadth. The old, hard split between "arts" children and "sciences" children is exactly the boundary this award dissolves — and it is dissolving fastest here, where AI is a stated national priority rather than a distant trend. A child in a Dubai or Abu Dhabi school who loves drawing, film or design is not choosing against technology by following that interest; increasingly, the two travel together. Where a school's curriculum allows it, pairing a creative subject with a computational one — Visual Arts or Design Technology alongside Computer Science in the IB Diploma, or Art with Computer Science at A-Level — keeps more doors open than either alone.
There is an equally important caution. This is a signal about optionality, not a mandate to redirect a creative child into coding. A genuine artistic interest is not improved by forcing a technical one on top of it, and "future-proofing" that overrides a child's actual motivation tends to backfire. The useful move for UAE families is quieter: notice that creative and technical literacy now reinforce each other in this market, keep both foundations reasonably open through the school years, and let a child's genuine interest lead. That is a very different conversation from the one many parents grew up with, where art and science sat in separate boxes.
What Should You Do?
If there is an adult creative in your family working at the art-and-technology intersection, note the 14 August 2026 deadline and read ADMAF's official open call, linked below, for eligibility and entry details. For families with school-age children, treat this as a prompt rather than an action: when subject-selection time comes, weigh whether keeping a creative and a computational subject in the mix fits your child's interests and school options.
Where a child wants to build the technical side of that picture, our in-home Computer Science tutors in Dubai help students develop real coding and computational-thinking foundations — the durable skills behind the tools, taught face-to-face and matched to your child's curriculum.