The UAE Cyber Security Council (CSC) has partnered with industrial cybersecurity firm Dragos Inc. to establish an Operational Technology (OT) Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence (CoE) in the UAE - the most prominent in a series of critical infrastructure security announcements made during the Make it in the Emirates (MIITE) 2026 forum in Abu Dhabi.
Background
The partnership was announced on May 4, 2026, under the UAE's Make it in the Emirates initiative. The Centre of Excellence aims to advance national cyber resilience and digital sovereignty by localizing advanced cybersecurity capabilities, accelerating innovation, and developing a skilled cyber workforce. The initiative seeks to position the UAE as a regional and global hub for cybersecurity excellence, aligning with national strategies to strengthen critical infrastructure protection.[1]
The announcement comes amid intensifying threats to industrial systems worldwide. Industrial security data for 2025 recorded 119 ransomware groups affecting more than 3,300 industrial organizations, a 49 percent increase from 80 groups a year earlier, with manufacturing accounting for more than two-thirds of victims. Dragos threat intelligence further highlights Gulf-region exposure: a custom multi-stage backdoor named Tickler, which Dragos associates with threat group MAGNALLIUM, targeted critical infrastructure sectors including satellite communications, oil and gas, and government organizations in both the U.S. and the UAE.
The UAE Information Assurance Standard v2.1, released in November 2025, replaced the 2020 framework and placed the Cyber Security Council at the center of national cyber governance. The updated standard consolidates policies covering critical information infrastructure, cloud security, artificial intelligence, IoT, incident response, encryption, secure remote work, and third-party risk, providing operators with a more unified compliance baseline.
Details
Through the partnership, Dragos will provide a specialized OT environment where professionals can simulate real-world cyberattack and defense scenarios, building expertise in OT and industrial control systems (ICS) security.
Robert M. Lee, CEO and co-founder of Dragos, stated: "Industrial and critical infrastructure in the UAE and the broader Gulf region faces real and growing threats, and the same threat groups we track globally are active here. This Centre of Excellence gives operators in the region a place to see exactly how OT environments are monitored, how threats are detected, and what effective defense looks like in practice."
Dr. Mohamed Al Kuwaiti, Head of Cybersecurity for the UAE Government, said: "Our collaboration with international partners to establish Cyber Security Centres of Excellence comes amid a surge in cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure. These centres serve as advanced platforms that enable proactive threat anticipation, continuous monitoring, and early detection of cyber incidents, while supporting the development and application of effective defence strategies in real operational environments."[2]
The Dragos CoE was one of several OT-focused agreements signed at MIITE 2026. On May 7, 2026, the UAE Cyber Security Council and Siemens signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen cybersecurity cooperation across critical infrastructure and industrial sectors. The MoU establishes a strategic framework for joint action in cyber defense, knowledge sharing, and the development of locally hosted security capabilities. Under the agreement, the two parties intend to establish a Joint Innovation Center of Excellence dedicated to advancing OT cybersecurity research, talent development, and the deployment of advanced solutions within the UAE. The partnership also covers secure cross-border alert forwarding from a UAE-hosted SIEM platform to Siemens systems in Germany for coordinated incident response, with phased expansion of UAE-based Security Operations Center (SOC) capabilities.
A day after the Dragos announcement, the UAE Cybersecurity Council disclosed a strategic collaboration with Nozomi Networks targeting cyber resilience across OT and Internet of Things (IoT) environments. The collaboration covers critical national assets spanning energy, utilities, transportation, manufacturing, and smart infrastructure, and includes the establishment of an Innovation and Excellence Center in Abu Dhabi intended as a national platform to accelerate innovation and strengthen industrial cybersecurity readiness.
IBM announced a collaboration with the Council to establish a joint Innovation Center in Abu Dhabi focused on trusted AI, cyber resilience, and governance frameworks. The Council also partnered with Honeywell to support national cyber resilience programs focused on OT security and critical infrastructure protection across industrial environments.
Outlook
The initiatives reflect a public-private collaboration model aimed at building sustainable cyber capabilities and safeguarding critical national infrastructure. The partnerships announced during MIITE 2026 arrive as governments and enterprises globally face rising cyber threats targeting industrial systems, cloud infrastructure, AI environments, and operational technologies. For the UAE, the developments also signal a broader push to build sovereign cyber capabilities alongside national ambitions in AI infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, smart industries, and digital economy growth. Operationalizing multiple centers of excellence simultaneously will require sustained coordination among participating vendors, government entities, and local institutions to avoid duplication and ensure interoperable threat intelligence pipelines across sectors.
