22 to 42: Oman's AI Startup Count Jumps 91% in a Year

The number of Omani companies building artificial intelligence products has nearly doubled in a single year, according to new figures released by the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology (MTCIT). It is a rare, hard data point in a sector usually described in terms of ambition rather than headcount.

📊 Key Takeaways

• Omani companies operating in the AI sector reached 42 by the end of August 2026, up from 22 a year earlier, a growth of about 91%, according to Times of Oman.
• The figures were confirmed to the Oman News Agency by Tawah bint Abdullah Al Dawood, Head of the Development and Studies Department at MTCIT, as reported by The Arabian Stories.
• MTCIT frames the growth as part of the National Programme for Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Digital Technologies, which targets the digitalisation of sectors including transportation, logistics, tourism, food security and manufacturing, as previously outlined by Oman Observer.
• The jump comes as Muscat separately advances a dedicated AI Special Economic Zone and continues rolling out sector-specific AI pilots across health, education and logistics.

🔢 What the numbers actually say

The headline figure is simple: 22 Omani AI companies a year ago, 42 today. That is a count of registered companies working in the artificial intelligence space, not a measure of revenue, headcount or exports, but it is the first time MTCIT has put a specific, sourced number on the size of the local AI industry rather than describing it in general terms. Al Dawood told the Oman News Agency, as relayed by The Arabian Stories, that these companies are "developing innovative technological solutions and products that help improve business efficiency, enhance services, automate processes and strengthen the use of data in decision-making."

🏗️ The scaffolding behind the growth

MTCIT has spent the past two years building the institutional plumbing that this kind of growth needs: an AI Studio, a National Research Center for AI, an "AI Makers" innovation track, and a National Programme for Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Digital Technologies approved by the Council of Ministers, according to Oman Observer's earlier reporting on the programme. That reporting also describes a target of digitalising key economic sectors, including transportation, logistics, tourism, food security and manufacturing, and lifting the digital economy's share of GDP from around 2% in 2021 toward 10% by 2040.

That target-setting matters because it explains why the government is now counting AI companies at all. A ministry does not track a metric it does not intend to move. The same logic sits behind Oman's planned AI Special Economic Zone near Muscat International Airport, and behind the wave of sector pilots the country has already rolled out this year, from AI-assisted diabetic retinopathy screening in public hospitals to AI orchestration software at the ports of Sohar and Salalah.

🧩 Who is actually behind these companies

The 42-company figure is abstract on its own, but it lines up with a visible cluster of Omani firms that have moved from prototype to paying customer over the past 18 months. Muscat-based SaaS company Rihal has raised $7.5 million and grown to roughly 300 staff building software and AI tools for regional clients, one of the clearer examples of an Omani tech company scaling past the startup stage. Elsewhere, government-linked digital platforms have started pulling homegrown AI talent directly into public infrastructure, as seen when talent platform Otech partnered with Omani startup Remedy to help staff AI roles across the economy. These are the kinds of companies MTCIT's count is likely capturing: small, technical, increasingly export-capable, and clustered around Muscat.

💼 Why this matters for Oman

A near-doubling of AI companies in one year is a meaningful private-sector signal in an economy where public policy has, until recently, run ahead of visible market activity. If the trend holds, it feeds directly into the private-sector job creation Oman is counting on to absorb its growing pool of job-seeking graduates, a dynamic explored in detail in recent Vision 2040 labour-market analysis. It also gives MTCIT a concrete benchmark to defend its digital economy targets against, rather than relying on GDP-share projections alone. For businesses across energy, logistics, finance, health, education, tourism and retail, the practical takeaway is that the pool of local AI vendors capable of building deployable tools, not just running pilots, is growing quickly enough that sourcing an Omani AI partner is now a realistic option rather than an aspiration.