Middle East: the emerging global hub for digital health innovation
Governments across the region are making bold investments in healthcare innovation, with the UAE and Dubai leading the charge
8 July, 2025
By Gulf Business
From virtual hospitals to AI-powered diagnostics, the Middle East is rapidly becoming one of the world’s most dynamic frontiers for digital health.
Governments across the region are making bold investments in healthcare innovation, with the UAE and Dubai leading the charge.
Fuelled by national transformation strategies and the rise of change-making platforms like WHX Tech, the region is no longer just participating in the global health tech movement. It’s helping define it.
A sector on the rise
In the UAE, the digital health market is poised for exponential growth. Valued at $745.7m in 2024, it is projected to reach $2.6bn by 2030, growing at a compound annual rate of 23.5 per cent, according to Grand View Research.
This acceleration is being driven by the widespread adoption of telemedicine, AI-assisted diagnostics, remote monitoring tools, and mobile health platforms: all priorities in the country’s broader digital transformation agenda.
Increasingly, Dubai is emerging as the region’s epicentre for digital health events, innovation, and collaboration.
This is amid the backdrop of massive investments in AI in the UAE more broadly. In May this year, it was announced that a next-generation AI compute cluster, dubbed Stargate UAE, would be located at the newly established UAE–US AI Campus in Abu Dhabi. The likes of G42, OpenAI, Oracle, NVIDIA, SoftBank Group and Cisco are behind the project which will span 10 square miles and be the largest such deployment outside of the US.
Why Dubai, and why now?
As the UAE’s most internationally connected city, Dubai is fast becoming the nexus of digital health innovation in the region. The emirate’s smart city ambitions, world-class digital infrastructure, and targeted investment in health tech make it the ideal launchpad for WHX Tech.
Over the past year, Dubai has accelerated efforts to integrate AI, telemedicine, and predictive analytics across its healthcare system, along with initiatives led by Dubai Health Authority and the Dubai Future Foundation.
Districts such as Dubai Healthcare City and Dubai Science Park are drawing global startups, while regulatory innovation and a commitment to open data have positioned the city as a pioneer in next-generation health solutions.
WHX Tech, hosted at Dubai World Trade Centre, builds on this momentum by bringing the world’s leading health tech voices to the region’s most future-focused city.
Organised by the team behind WHX Dubai (formerly Arab Health) and in partnership with HIMSS, WHX Tech is designed to convene the sharpest minds in tech, policy, and care delivery. Taking place from 8–10 September 2025 at Dubai World Trade Centre, it will bring together over 5,000 health tech leaders, 300 exhibitors, and 250+ speakers from more than 30 countries.
Top speakers are set to include the likes of British fitness coach, entrepreneur, author, and television personality Joe Wicks and prominent British entrepreneur, investor and Dragon’s Den Judge Peter Jones.
Other healthcare voices will include Jyoti Gupta, the president and CEO for Women’s Health and X-Ray at GE HealthCare; Faisal Albaraiki, the CEO of Vision Hospitals, among many more.
Meanwhile, the Xcelerate Zone, WHX Tech’s dedicated startup stage, will host the region’s largest digital health pitch competition with a $50,000 prize, giving early-stage ventures an unprecedented platform to connect with global investors and buyers.
As Dr David Rhew, global chief medical officer and VP of healthcare at Microsoft, puts it: “WHX Tech is uniquely positioned to serve as a digital health hub for the world because of its central geography, large regional investments in digital health and biotechnology and AI, and growing footprint of healthcare organisations located in the Middle East.”
Digital health is no longer a trend in the Middle East: it’s a strategic priority reshaping healthcare delivery across the region. And WHX Tech is where that movement gathers momentum.
Join the digital health revolution. Register now at WHX Tech Dubai
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