Ras Al Khaimah Signs Humanoid Robotics MoU With Shenzhen's UBTECH

• 2012 — Year UBTECH Robotics was founded in Shenzhen (listed 9880.HK)
• 4 — Initial test areas: industrial assembly, public services, elder care, cultural spaces
• 19 Oct 2026 — MoU signed in Shenzhen during a week-long RAK trade visit to South China

The International Relations Office of the Government of Ras Al Khaimah has signed a strategic memorandum of understanding with Shenzhen-listed UBTECH Robotics to jointly research, field-test and deploy humanoid robots in the emirate. The agreement was signed in Shenzhen by Alma Au Yeung, Greater China Affairs Advisor in the Office of the Ruler, and Claudia Chen, UBTECH's Overseas Sales Director, and was witnessed by Ruler Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi alongside UBTECH chief financial officer Jimmy Zhang and UAE Ministry of Investment undersecretary Mohammad Abdulrahman Alhawi. Under the deal, UBTECH will deploy robotic platforms and engineering teams into RAK for live demonstration projects, while the emirate provides a regulatory sandbox and real-world testing conditions.

Initial trials are set to cover automated industrial assembly, public-facing services, AI-assisted elder care and cultural spaces, with the two sides also studying whether to formalise a dedicated "Ras Al Khaimah Humanoid Robotics Climate Research Initiative" to validate how the machines perform under the UAE's heat and humidity for wider Gulf deployment. "This collaboration represents a meaningful step forward in Ras Al Khaimah's journey toward a knowledge-based economy," Au Yeung said of the signing. The MoU was struck during the same week-long South China visit that produced RAK's business summit in Shenzhen, reinforcing the emirate's pitch to Chinese technology firms as a low-friction regional testbed as it pushes to diversify beyond any single sector contributing more than 27% of GDP.