Architecting the future: How Abu Dhabi Redefines Capital Through AI
Liquidity’s Chief Strategy Officer, Carmen James, was interviewed for Gulf Business’ Abu Dhabi Finance magazine, a special edition publication exclusively for Abu Dhabi Finance Week 2025.
The article in full follows:
"Where AI meets capital: Abu Dhabi's strategic ascent"
By Gareth Van Zyl
December 2025
"Carmen James, Chief Strategy Officer at AI-driven private credit from Liquidity, outlines how sovereign-scale data science, private credit expansion and long-horizon thinking are positioning Abu Dhabi at the centre of the new global financial architecture.
How is the global capital landscape shifting for high-growth companies, and where does Abu Dhabi now fit within this new blueprint of global finance?
The traditional pathways to growth capital have fundamentally fractured. For nearly a decade, high-growth companies relied on a predictable sequence: early venture rounds, Series funding, then an IPO exit. That playbook is fundamentally changed. IPO markets experienced their longest drought in forty years, and while we're seeing signs of a thaw, the reality is that innovative companies are staying private longer.
The average age at which VC-backed companies go public has stretched from roughly 7 years during the 90’s to over 13 years today. Meanwhile, private credit has surged to approximately $1.5 trillion globally and is projected to exceed $2.6 trillion by 2029.
Abu Dhabi has positioned itself with real intentionality within this new architecture. The emirate now hosts sovereign wealth funds managing a collective $1.8 trillion, it’s the ‘Capital of Capital’ for good reason. What's compelling isn't merely the concentration of capital, it's the strategic clarity that comes from long-term vision and stability.
Through vehicles like MGX, the $100 billion AI-focused fund launched with G42 and Mubadala, Abu Dhabi is actively engineering the global capital network rather than simply participating in it. For growth-stage companies seeking partners who understand the intersection of technology and patient capital, Abu Dhabi has become a destination rather than a detour.
How is artificial intelligence reshaping private credit, and what role can Abu Dhabi play as a hub for decision-science-driven finance?
Liquidity is uniquely a one-of-one model for private credit. With AI at the core of the entire deal process, it’s a truly predictive investment engine. Our model is built on deep data integration and credit risk scoring, with a data-first approach now becoming the new standard rather than the exception, specifically in credit.
AI is transforming every stage of the credit lifecycle, from deal sourcing and due diligence through documentation review and portfolio monitoring. Where traditional lenders might spend 6-12 weeks plus on an investment decision, our decision science-led approach allows us to make that call in days while maintaining a 0% loss rate against an industry norm of 5% - that's the precision difference between pattern recognition at scale and human intuition.
What makes Abu Dhabi's position genuinely distinctive is the convergence of capital concentration and AI enablement at sovereign scale. ADIA has embraced a total portfolio approach, managing all assets as one unified portfolio judged by contribution to total outcomes rather than siloed benchmarks. This framework demands exactly the kind of rigorous data-driven discipline that AI enables. ADIA isn't theorising about this either, their Quantitative R&D team numbers ~100 experts in data science, machine learning and AI.
Then there's ADIA Lab, an independent research institution tackling everything from climate science to federated learning, with an advisory board that includes Nobel and Turing laureates.
When TPA-adopting funds demonstrate a 1-2% edge over traditional approaches, that edge comes from disciplined, data-informed decision-making and Abu Dhabi is building the infrastructure, talent and intellectual architecture to lead it. The emirate isn't just deploying capital into AI - it's restructuring how capital gets allocated using AI. That's the difference between participating in the AI economy and architecting it.
You previously worked with ADIO to help global firms establish in the emirate. What strategic advantages does Abu Dhabi now offer fintechs and investors that were not as visible five years ago?
Abu Dhabi was always a highly compelling jurisdiction but those advantages have come even more sharply into focus. When Liquidity established our R&D centre in ADGM through ADIO's Innovation Programme in 2022, we were amongst the first asset management companies to benefit from that partnership.
The incentive structures were attractive, but what truly moved the needle was access to talent, time zone advantages that overlap with global markets, and a regulatory environment that genuinely understands technology-enabled finance.
Several advantages have crystallised that weren't as obvious before. The advantages of the regulatory, capital and social environment were always apparent, but what has truly changed is the attractiveness of the emirate to the most driven individuals out there.
Human capital is what drives firms to success and you need a great city to attract great people - which means social, educational, lifestyle, safety, cultural infrastructure that requires time and investment to shine - now everyone wants to move here. Abu Dhabi has evolved from an interesting option to an obvious choice.
Looking ahead to 2030, what does the future financial infrastructure of the region look like to you — and what role will alternative credit and cross-border capital platforms play in enabling that future?
Here's an unpopular truth: financial infrastructure in 2030 won't look radically different. We still use ATMs. SWIFT still moves money. Blockchain hasn't replaced the plumbing, it's been bolted onto it.
The reality is that finance evolves slowly and deliberately, because it has to. Innovations that matter aren't the ones that promise revolution, they're the ones that can be implemented safely, sustainably and at scale within existing systems.
What will shift is the balance of power. The structural migration from bank lending to private credit isn't a cycle - it's a permanent reallocation - and that trend will only accelerate as regulatory constraints on traditional lenders persist.
By 2030, the winners won't be those chasing the flashiest technology, they'll be the platforms that have quietly built the capability to truly understand private market valuations in real time, where opacity has historically been the norm.
As more capital floods into private credit, pressure on the asset class will build as ‘mark to myth’ continues and discipline will separate the durable from the distressed. Platforms like Liquidity, with decision science embedded from origination through portfolio management, are designed precisely for that environment.
Abu Dhabi's role in this isn't as a disruptor, it's as a patient, well-capitalised hub where technology, regulatory clarity, and long-horizon thinking converge to support the kind of sustainable innovation that will actually move the needle."
–
