MENA News
Scale AI Enters Qatar’s Justice System as AI Moves Into High-Stakes Government Work
Qatar’s Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Communications and Information Technology have signed two agreements with Scale AI to develop AI tools for legal and justice services. The projects will target notarisation, document authentication, state litigation and legal research.
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Across the Gulf, governments are moving AI from pilots into operational systems. Most of the impactful deployments are happening behind the public interface, inside the workflows that determine how laws are processed, cases are managed and official decisions are supported.
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, the Ministry of Justice and Scale AI have signed two agreements to develop AI-powered solutions under the SAK and Shoor projects, as part of Qatar’s Government AI Program and Digital Agenda 2030. The parties signed the agreements at MWC Doha 2026 on November 10.
Notarisation and State Cases
Both projects impact different parts of the justice system. SAK will focus on notarisation and authentication services, using AI to improve processing speed, accuracy and access to Ministry of Justice services. Shoor is aimed more directly at legal work.
The system is being developed to help Ministry of Justice lawyers manage state cases by making it easier to access, analyze and research legal information. These are not just productivity tools for drafting emails; they sit inside legal processes where incomplete analysis or incorrect information matter greatly. The value of the systems will therefore depend as much on how they are governed as on how quickly they can process information.
The new projects extend the existing collaboration among MCIT, the Ministry of Justice, and Scale AI. That work has already led to a Smart Legislative Advisor that supports the drafting and review of legislation.
Qatar says the system is intended to reduce legislative processing and review from approximately 35 days to around five days, while maintaining human oversight and professional legal accountability.
Scale AI’s Gulf Role Is Expanding
The Qatar agreements further expand Scale AI’s role in the Gulf. In February 2025, MCIT established a five-year strategic partnership with Scale AI, with plans to develop more than 50 AI-powered government projects by 2029. The partnership also includes the Alif Program, designed to build AI capabilities among government employees.
This shows a broader scope as Scale is not being brought in for one isolated justice-sector experiment. It is becoming part of the infrastructure supporting Qatar’s wider government AI program.
In the UAE, Scale recently established a permanent Dubai base and is working with Presight on AI evaluation, governance, and simulation for mission-critical systems. That expansion reflects a broader shift in Scale’s business from training data to the reliability and governance layer required when AI is deployed in high-stakes environments.
Legal systems demand exactly the type of evaluation, control and auditability that become more important as AI moves from generating information to supporting real institutional workflows.
It is easy to focus on the headline productivity gains. Reducing a 35-day legislative process to five days is significant. Faster notarisation and easier legal research could also reduce administrative pressure across the justice system.
But legal AI will ultimately be judged differently from most enterprise technology. A system can be fast and still be unsuitable for justice if its outputs are inconsistent or difficult to verify.
That means SAK and Shoor's success will depend on whether AI can deliver measurable efficiency while preserving traceability and human responsibility. This is where Qatar’s latest agreements become more interesting than another government technology announcement. The country is beginning to move AI into workflows that carry institutional authority.
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