Midad Digital Centre Opens in Muscat for AI and 5G Talent

A new national training institution focused on artificial intelligence, 5G and the Internet of Things has opened its doors in Muscat. The Research and Innovation Authority (RIA) inaugurated the Midad Digital Centre at Innovation Park Muscat on Sunday, 27 September 2026, under the patronage of Dr Saif bin Abdullah Al Hadabi, the Authority's Chairman, according to Muscat Daily.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• RIA opened the Midad Digital Centre at Innovation Park Muscat on 27 September 2026, describing it as a specialised national training institution for advanced digital skills.
• The centre's technical focus spans advanced communications, 5G networks, the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence.
• Ericsson is the technology and knowledge partner, supplying communications platforms and expertise, while Omantel supports the centre's technological environment and links it to the national telecom ecosystem.
• The Ibn Firnas Academy for Unmanned Aircraft manages day-to-day operations, including a practical "Digital Lab" component.
• The Ministry of Finance backed the project through its Partnership for Development (Offset) Programme, according to Al Roya.
• The initiative is explicitly framed as support for Oman Vision 2040's digital transformation and knowledge-economy goals.

🏗️ What Actually Opened, and Who Is Behind It

The Midad Digital Centre is not a research lab or a data centre in the conventional sense. As Muscat Daily reported, it is billed as a "specialised national training institution" whose job is knowledge transfer, capacity building, and tracking future trends in advanced communications, 5G, IoT and AI. In practice, that means workshops, hands-on labs, and programmes designed to give young Omanis and public institutions direct exposure to emerging technology rather than theory alone.

The centre sits within Innovation Park Muscat, an existing hub for start-ups and applied research, and is operated day-to-day by the Ibn Firnas Academy for Unmanned Aircraft, an institution better known for training drone pilots and unmanned-systems specialists. According to Al Roya's report, published on 24 September 2026, Ibn Firnas will run the centre's practical programmes, including a "Digital Lab" component that gives participants direct access to equipment and testbeds.

Two commercial partners provide the underlying technology stack. Ericsson equipped the centre with advanced communications platforms and is acting as technical and knowledge partner, while Omantel is supporting the centre's technological environment and connecting its programmes to the national telecommunications network. Funding for the project's establishment came through the Ministry of Finance's Partnership for Development Programme, a mechanism Oman has used before to channel offset obligations from major contracts into local capacity-building projects.

🏛️ A Young Authority Building Its First Flagship

The Midad Centre is also notable for who is opening it. The Research and Innovation Authority is a relatively new body: it was created by Royal Decree 11/2026, issued on 12 January 2026 and published in the Official Gazette on 13 January 2026, which detached research and innovation functions from the Ministry of Higher Education and gave them to an independent public authority answerable directly to the Council of Ministers. Less than nine months after that decree, RIA has moved from organisational restructuring to opening a physical facility with named private-sector partners and a specific government funding channel behind it, which is a faster timeline than many newly formed Omani authorities manage for their first flagship project.

📶 Where This Fits in Oman's Digital Government Push

Midad is a skills and capacity-building initiative rather than a citizen-facing e-service, but it plugs directly into the same national digital transformation effort that has driven a wave of platform launches this year. Oman's telecom regulator, for instance, recently moved core administrative functions online when it launched an AI-powered portal for telecom coverage requests, part of a broader shift toward AI-assisted public administration. Building a domestic pipeline of engineers and technicians who understand 5G, IoT and AI systems is the workforce side of that same push: platforms and portals are only as good as the people who can build, secure and maintain them.

The centre's focus on 5G and IoT specifically also matters given how much of Oman's current digital-government infrastructure depends on network connectivity, from real-time smart-city sensors to mobile-first government apps. A national training pipeline aligned with the same technologies that carriers like Omantel are deploying commercially reduces the risk of a skills gap emerging as those networks expand.

🎯 Why This Matters for Oman

Digital government platforms, smart-city systems and AI-enabled public services are only sustainable if Oman has enough trained people to run them without permanent reliance on foreign contractors. The Midad Digital Centre is a direct, government-backed answer to that constraint: a purpose-built facility, run by an existing training academy, equipped by a global telecom vendor, and funded through an established government partnership mechanism. It is a small, concrete step rather than a sweeping reform, but it is exactly the kind of infrastructure investment that determines whether Oman's Vision 2040 digital economy targets are backed by real domestic capacity or just imported systems.