GITEX Dubai 2026: What to Expect, December 7-11
TL;DR
GITEX Global 2026 runs 7-11 December in Dubai. The Summit opens at Dubai World Trade Centre on 7 December and the expo moves to Dubai Exhibition Centre at Expo City from 8 to 11 December. Dates, venues, ticket prices, the new dedicated shows, and why AI regulation, Dubai crypto rules, and the chip war will dominate the floor.
Table of Contents
GITEX Global 2026: the short version
GITEX Global 2026 runs from 7 to 11 December 2026 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It is the 46th edition, and it moved from its usual October dates, so if you went before, check the calendar. The GITEX Summit opens the week on 7 December at Dubai World Trade Centre, and the GITEX Global Expo runs 8 to 11 December at Dubai Exhibition Centre in Expo City Dubai, the first time the expo sits at that venue.
The official site calls it the world's largest tech and AI show. Guides to the 2026 edition project more than 200,000 executives from over 180 countries, more than 6,800 exhibitors, and more than 400 government entities. Those are projections. The 2025 numbers further down give you the real base to judge them against.
This post covers the dates, venues, and passes, the five new dedicated shows, what happened in 2025, and the three debates that will fill the halls: AI regulation, Dubai's crypto rules, and the chip war. Every number in it names its source, so you can check it yourself.
Figure 1: Dubai at dusk, with a glass exhibition building in the foreground. GITEX Global 2026 runs 7-11 December, and December is when Dubai is at its best for walking between venues.
Dates, venues, and passes
Two venues, two parts, one week. The Summit is a single day for senior delegates. The expo is four days for everyone else. Expand North Star, the startup and investor event, runs alongside the expo at the same venue.
| Part | Dates | Venue | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| The GITEX Summit | 7 December 2026 | Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC), Sheikh Maktoum Hall | 9:30-5:00 |
| GITEX Global Expo | 8-11 December 2026 | Dubai Exhibition Centre (DEC), Expo City Dubai, North and South Halls | 10:00-5:00 |
| Expand North Star | 8-11 December 2026 | Dubai Exhibition Centre (DEC), alongside the expo | 10:00-5:00 |
The visitor pass costs AED 630 plus 5% VAT, per the official registration form. The Expand North Star pass is free. The basic visitor pass does not include the 7 December Summit, which is trade only and needs separate delegate registration. Registration runs at visit.gitex.com, and the official plan your visit page carries the venue, transport, visa, and hotel details in one place.
The venue move matters for planning. The 2025 edition sat at Dubai World Trade Centre for all five days. In 2026, only the Summit stays there. The expo moves about 30 minutes out to Expo City, so book your hotel with that split in mind. The Metro Red Line connects both venues, and the official page lists direct shuttles between them.
The Summit on 7 December sets the agenda
The Summit is one full day of high-level talks on AI economies, policy, and investment, with ministers, policymakers, tech leaders, investors, and founders in the room. The official site names three focus topics for the day: The Compute Economy, The New Map of Capital, and Future Frontiers. The program also lists closed-door Chatham House briefings, the LIVX World Longevity Forum, the GITEX Capital Forum, and a gala dinner.
The Summit frames its dialogues around AI sovereignty and scalability: who controls the computing power, who funds it, and how fast it can grow without breaking the grids and budgets behind it. Speakers named on the official site include Peng Xiao, CEO of G42; Marc Ganzi, CEO of DigitalBridge; Sanjay Poonen, CEO and President of Cohesity; Connor Leahy, US Executive Director of ControlAI; Gisselle Ruiz Lanza, VP and GM EMEA at Intel; Tomas Lamanauskas, Deputy Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union; Mikko Hyppönen, Chief Research Officer at Senseofusion; and Dr. Ben Goertzel, CEO of SingularityNET.
One note on the theme. The official site does not give the 2026 edition one theme label. It describes the speakers as the leaders shaping the intelligence economy, and the Summit's stated focus is the three topics above. AnewZ, in a 4 November 2026 piece, billed the edition "The Global Reset 2027, Through a New Lens". That wording comes from AnewZ, not from gitex.com, so treat it as one outlet's framing.
The expo floor: five new dedicated shows
The expo runs 8 to 11 December across the North and South Halls of Dubai Exhibition Centre. Five dedicated shows sit inside it, each with its own floor area and program:
- GITEX Agentix: AI agents and autonomous software, the programs that act on their own instead of waiting for a prompt.
- GITEX Quantum Expo: quantum computing, from hardware to the first commercial uses.
- GITEX World Robotix: robotics and physical AI, machines that move in the real world.
- GITEX Super Computex: data centres and high-performance computing, the hardware underneath the AI boom.
- GITEX Marketing Intelligence: AI for marketing, from targeting to measurement.
The theme areas across the expo are AI infrastructure, quantum, intelligent mobility, robotics, data centres, cybersecurity, and digital government. Expand North Star, the startup and investor event, reunites at the same venue and runs alongside the expo for all four days.
Figure 2: The expo floor. The 2026 edition projects more than 6,800 exhibitors across the North and South Halls of Dubai Exhibition Centre.
Surging AI demand is putting pressure on energy, computing capacity, and digital infrastructure, and AnewZ names that pressure as one of the forces shaping the 2026 edition. That is why data centres and power get their own show this year instead of sitting inside a general AI hall. If you work in infrastructure, Super Computex is the floor to walk first.
Figure 3: A humanoid robot demo on the show floor. GITEX World Robotix gives robotics and physical AI its own dedicated show in 2026.
2025 vs 2026: the numbers
The 2025 edition gives you the base to judge the 2026 projections. The 2025 figures below are the reported results for that year. The 2026 figures are projections from guides to the coming edition, and the official site has not published final 2026 counts yet.
| 2025 (reported) | 2026 (projected) | |
|---|---|---|
| Edition | 45th | 46th |
| Dates | 13-17 October 2025 | 7-11 December 2026 |
| Main venue | Dubai World Trade Centre | Dubai Exhibition Centre, Expo City (Summit at DWTC) |
| Exhibitors | 6,800+ | 6,800+ |
| Startups | 2,000 | Not published yet |
| Investors | 1,200 | Not published yet |
| Countries | 180+ | 180+ |
| Executives | Not published | 200,000+ |
| Government entities | Not published | 400+ |
Brazil was the 2025 Country Partner, with its largest-ever delegation. Sam Altman gave his first GITEX address, virtually, alongside Peng Xiao, Group CEO of G42, on AI-native societies. On the floor, e& ran 90-plus displays covering robotics, mobility, digital healthcare, eVTOL, and autonomous air taxis. Mercedes-Benz brought the VISION EQXX concept car, rated at over 1,000 km range per charge. XPENG showed its eVTOL flying vehicle. Oracle showed distributed cloud and generative AI avatars. BlackBerry showed its communications platform, AWS showed cloud with built-in cybersecurity, and HCL showed generative AI and BigFix endpoint management.
AI regulation lands five days before the doors open
The EU AI Act's big date is 2 December 2026. Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 puts new bans and marking duties into force that day, with fines up to 35 million euro or 7% of global turnover for the top tier. GITEX opens on 7 December, five days later. Vendors selling into Europe will walk the floor while their compliance teams are still reading the final texts, and the Summit's AI sovereignty sessions will run against that backdrop.
The rest of the map is uneven. The United States has no federal AI statute. California's SB 53 is in force from 1 January 2026, and New York's RAISE takes effect on 1 January 2027. Colorado's AI act was repealed by SB 26-189, effective 1 January 2027. The UAE has no verifiable federal AI act. That patchwork is the point of the policy sessions: one product, many rulebooks, and buyers who now ask about compliance before they ask about price.
Crypto in Dubai: 2026 is the enforcement year
Dubai built the rules first and is now enforcing them. The Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) was created by Dubai Law No. 4 of 2022, the world's first standalone virtual assets regulator, with a full rulebook in February 2023 and eight licensed activity categories. 2026 is the year supervision turned active, with inspections, sanctions, and the FATF Travel Rule applying to transfers of AED 3,500 and above.
Federal Decree-Law 10/2025, in force from October 2025, put virtual asset service providers under the full AML and CFT regime. On 31 March 2026, the VARA Exchange Services Rulebook v2.1 opened crypto derivatives, futures, options, CFDs, and perpetuals, with retail positions limited to 5 times the margin deposited and a 20% minimum initial margin. On 29 April 2026, a joint operation by the FBI, Dubai Police, and Chinese authorities arrested 276 people and dismantled at least nine cryptocurrency scam centres.
The count now stands at more than 80 licensed virtual asset service providers in the UAE, and Chainalysis ranked Dubai among the top five global crypto hubs in its MENA Crypto Adoption Report 2025. The regulator map changed too. On 1 January 2026, Federal Decree-Laws 32/33 of 2025 took effect, abolishing the Securities and Commodities Authority and replacing it with the Capital Market Authority (CMA). In February 2026, CMA Decision 4/R.M/2026 brought a three-module VASP rulebook, a Green List of approved tokens, and bans on privacy tokens and algorithmic tokens.
Figure 4: Paying by phone in Dubai. The city now pairs a live crypto market with active enforcement: more than 80 licensed virtual asset service providers, derivatives open since March 2026, and the Travel Rule on transfers of AED 3,500 and above.
The chip war is now a courtroom story
The fight over AI chips will be in the room at GITEX because Dubai sits on one of the routes the rules now cover. US Bureau of Industry and Security controls on advanced AI chips to China have been in force since 7 October 2022. On 15 January 2026, the Nvidia H200 and AMD MI325X moved from presumption of denial to case-by-case review, with ceilings of 21,000 total processing performance, 6,500 GB/s DRAM bandwidth, and a 50% volume cap.
On 31 May 2026, the subsidiary loophole closed. A licence is now needed for advanced chips going to companies headquartered in China, Macau, or other Country Group D:5 destinations, wherever the receiving subsidiary sits. The rule covers Nvidia Blackwell and Rubin and AMD MI350X, and it shut the channel that ran through subsidiaries in Malaysia, Singapore, and the UAE.
Enforcement is now criminal. On 19 March 2026, a Manhattan indictment charged the Supermicro co-founder and two others with routing about $2.5 billion in Nvidia-equipped AI servers to China through a Southeast Asian shell company, carrying up to 30 years. Taiwan ran its first criminal AI chip smuggling crackdown on 21 May 2026. Bosch agreed a $36,184,680 civil penalty on 17 June 2026 over unlicensed shipments to Huawei.
China answered with domestic chips. Huawei shipped roughly 812,000 Ascend cards in 2025, per IDC. Domestic chips reached about 41% of China's AI-server market in 2025, per the Stanford AI Index, up from roughly 5% two years earlier. SMIC's most advanced line makes only about 2.6 million AI chips a year against domestic demand near 4.2 million, so the gap is real even as the share climbs. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in May 2026 that the company has largely conceded the Chinese AI chip market to Huawei.
The 24 September 2026 Trump-Xi summit produced an AI incident hotline and a recurring Super Intelligence Dialogue, but export controls were not on the agenda and Blackwell restrictions stayed intact. Two bills are live but not enacted: the Remote Access Security Act, which the House passed on 12 January 2026 by 369-22, and the Chip Security Act, which the House Foreign Affairs Committee advanced 42-0 on 26 March 2026.
Figure 5: The hardware underneath the compute economy. GITEX Super Computex covers data centres and high-performance computing, the part of AI that runs on chips, power, and cooling.
AI threats on the agenda
The attack side of AI will be hard to miss at GITEX. Gartner's 2026 CISO survey of 297 senior leaders, run from March to May 2026, found 41% had faced a deepfake social engineering incident on an audio call in the past 12 months, 35-36% on a video call, and 79% had faced phishing, spear-phishing, or business email compromise. The SANS 2026 AI Survey found 78% of organisations had observed confirmed or suspected AI-enabled attacks in the past year. CrowdStrike's 2026 Global Threat Report recorded an 89% year-over-year rise in AI-enabled adversary operations.
Those numbers explain why cybersecurity sits among the expo's theme areas and why the Summit covers AI sovereignty. The same AI that writes the demos also writes the phishing emails, clones the voices, and fakes the video calls. Buyers at GITEX will be asking vendors how their tools hold up against that, not just what the tools can do.
Planning your trip: tickets, travel, and where to stay
Register at visit.gitex.com. The visitor pass is AED 630 plus 5% VAT, and the Expand North Star pass is free. The Summit on 7 December needs separate delegate registration and is trade only.
Getting around is straightforward. Dubai Metro's Red Line connects both venues: World Trade Centre Station for the Summit, Expo 2020 Metro Station for the expo. A Silver or Gold NOL card is the official recommendation for multi-day attendance, and a Red Ticket covers one-way or day-pass travel. Careem and Uber run 24/7 at both venues. DXB airport to DWTC is about 20 minutes by Metro and about 15 minutes by taxi. Dedicated shuttles run direct between DWTC and DEC, plus hotel and exhibitor shuttles from the Transportation Hub.
Nationals of more than 45 countries get a UAE visa on arrival. If you need a visa, apply early: processing can take up to six weeks, and the official page lists Al Rais as the visa support partner. For hotels, Atelier by Informa lists rates up to 40% off across more than 80 properties in Dubai, with complimentary daily shuttles to the venue. Emirates offers 10% off Saver, Flex, and Flex Plus return fares in Economy and Business Class, and 5% off Flex Plus in Premium Economy, with promo code EVE6GTG for travel to Dubai from 2 to 16 December and return by 26 December.
December is the right month for Dubai. The official page lists an average temperature around 21-22°C, the currency is the UAE Dirham, the time zone is GMT+4, and English is widely spoken. Media registration is listed on gitex.com. The full practical checklist sits on the official plan your visit page, and it is the one to check before you book, since shuttle routes and parking can change.
Frequently asked questions
When is GITEX Global 2026?
7-11 December 2026 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The GITEX Summit runs on 7 December at Dubai World Trade Centre, and the GITEX Global Expo runs 8-11 December at Dubai Exhibition Centre in Expo City Dubai.
Did GITEX move from October?
Yes. The 2025 edition ran 13-17 October at Dubai World Trade Centre. The 2026 edition moved to 7-11 December, and the expo moved to Dubai Exhibition Centre at Expo City, with only the Summit staying at DWTC.
How much is a ticket?
The visitor pass costs AED 630 plus 5% VAT, per the official registration form. The Expand North Star pass is free. The 7 December Summit is not included in the basic visitor pass and needs separate delegate registration.
What is the theme for GITEX 2026?
The official site gives no single theme label. The Summit's stated focus is The Compute Economy, The New Map of Capital, and Future Frontiers, with dialogues on AI sovereignty and scalability. AnewZ billed the edition "The Global Reset 2027, Through a New Lens" in a 4 November 2026 piece, but that wording comes from AnewZ, not from gitex.com.
Why does crypto matter at GITEX 2026?
Dubai is in an enforcement year for crypto. VARA, created in 2022, now runs active supervision with inspections and sanctions. Derivatives opened in March 2026 with retail positions limited to 5 times the margin deposited, more than 80 virtual asset service providers are licensed in the UAE, and the Capital Market Authority replaced the Securities and Commodities Authority on 1 January 2026 with a new VASP rulebook.
What are the new dedicated shows?
Five: GITEX Agentix for AI agents and autonomous software, GITEX Quantum Expo for quantum computing, GITEX World Robotix for robotics and physical AI, GITEX Super Computex for data centres and high-performance computing, and GITEX Marketing Intelligence for AI in marketing.
How do I register as media?
Media registration is listed on gitex.com. The official site also shows coverage from CNBC, CNN, TechRadar, and Reuters for past editions.
See you in Dubai
GITEX 2026 is a December show in a new venue, with a Summit that puts the compute economy and AI sovereignty on the table, an expo floor split into five dedicated shows, and three live debates running through it all: the EU AI Act deadline five days before the doors open, Dubai's crypto enforcement year, and a chip war that now ends in courtrooms. Book early, plan for two venues, and check the official plan your visit page before you travel.
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