UAE Innovation City launches blockchain IDs for companies

The United Arab Emirates Innovation City has rolled out a blockchain-based system that assigns every registered company a sovereign, verifiable digital identity on-chain.

According to an official announcement from Innovation City, businesses incorporated in the Ras Al Khaimah free zone now receive a cryptographically secured identity issued through OPN Chain, the public blockchain infrastructure developed by IOPn. The system converts a traditional business license, typically stored as a PDF or registry entry, into a persistent on-chain asset designed for continuous verification.

“Today we don’t just register companies, we give them a soul on the blockchain,” said Paul Dawalibi, chief executive officer of Innovation City, adding that legacy systems rely on paper records and centralized databases, while the new model allows businesses to carry a verifiable identity across platforms and jurisdictions.

The announcement states that each identity functions as a live digital record, with ownership updates, compliance changes, and verification activity recorded in a format that can be audited. Officials at Innovation City said the system is intended to reduce document fraud and remove delays tied to manual verification processes used by institutions such as banks and regulators.

System designed for AI-led government services

Innovation City linked the rollout to a recent directive from the United Arab Emirates government to transition 50% of federal services to agent-based artificial intelligence within two years. The announcement said such systems require reliable digital identity infrastructure to process licensing, compliance, taxation, and cross-border interactions without manual checks.

“IOPn is the sovereign infrastructure layer enabling the UAE’s agentic AI economy, starting with business identity and built to scale across jurisdictions, institutions, and sectors,” said Mojtaba Asadian, chief executive officer of IOPn. 

He added that OPN Chain was selected to support what he described as verifiable, interoperable business credentials recorded on a public network.

Technical details in the announcement state that the system is built on an EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain capable of processing more than 10,000 transactions per second with sub-second finality. 

Innovation City said the infrastructure is designed to support cross-border interoperability, allowing third parties to verify business credentials without relying on centralized databases.

The company said firms adopting the identity system may gain faster access to digital government services and integrations with external partners as adoption expands. Officials did not identify specific banks, regulators, or institutions currently accepting the onchain identities, leaving open questions about how widely the system will be recognized outside the free zone.

As previously reported by crypto.news, the UAE government has set a two-year timeline to integrate agent-based artificial intelligence into 50% of its public sector operations, covering services, internal processes, and decision-making systems. 

Officials said the plan is structured in phases across ministries and federal entities, with performance reviews guiding each stage of implementation.

“AI is no longer a tool. It analyses, decides, executes, and improves in real time. It will become our executive partner to enhance services, accelerate decisions, and raise efficiency,” said Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

Officials said the programme also includes training government employees in generative AI systems to ensure operational readiness, while building on earlier digital infrastructure such as UAE Pass and existing eGovernment services to support the transition toward more autonomous public service delivery.