Abu dhabi: Presight, a leading global AI company that designs and deploys intelligent systems for governments and critical infrastructure, today revealed it received 376 applications from 62 countries for Cohort II of its AI Accelerator Programme.
According to Emirates News Agency, building on the success of its inaugural cohort, the Programme has achieved a major milestone by more than tripling application volume and significantly expanding its geographic reach compared to the 120 applications from 17 countries in the first cohort.
The strong and increasingly diverse pipeline underscores the program's rising profile as a platform for startups and innovators seeking to scale real-world AI solutions, while also highlighting a clear shift toward commercially viable, enterprise-focused innovation. Many applicants are developing technologies across enterprise AI, automation, data analytics, and sector-specific use cases spanning fintech, healthtech, govtech, and beyond.
This appeal also reflects growing global demand for applied intelligence systems that can operate within real-world environments, reinforcing Presight's role in identifying and scaling technologies designed for deployment across infrastructure, capital, and societal systems.
The majority of applications were received from applicants based in the Middle East (162), Asia Pacific (84), Europe (65), and North America (42). The top five countries represented by application volume included the United Arab Emirates (140), United States (37), India (26), United Kingdom (19), and South Korea (16).
Magzhan Kenesbai, Chief Growth Officer of Presight, expressed that the significant increase in applications for Cohort II reflects the program's success. The interest from global AI innovators to access the program aims to replicate previous achievements and unlock commercial pathways, placing Presight in a privileged position to identify breakthrough technologies that have the potential to scale across infrastructure, capital, and societal systems.
The Presight AI Accelerator Programme is a core component of the company's AI Innovation Ecosystem, designed to translate emerging technologies into operational capability at national and enterprise scale.
Applications for Cohort II align with this deployment-led approach, with a significant proportion focused on enterprise AI, agentic systems, data analytics, and process automation. There is also representation across healthcare, financial services, government and smart cities, and cybersecurity. A substantial segment of applicants demonstrates commercial traction, indicating a more mature and deployment-ready pipeline compared to the inaugural cohort.
This evolution marks a progression from Cohort I, which laid the foundation of the program by attracting high-potential startups across multiple sectors and selecting 10 companies to participate in a model focused on commercialization, integration, and scale. Collectively, Cohort I represents a potential total contract value of $26 million currently in discussion, alongside $1 million in confirmed investment into NodeShift from the Presight-Shorooq Fund I.