Dubai Future Foundation and Oxa Establish Autonomous Logistics Joint Venture
The Dubai Future Foundation has partnered with autonomous vehicle software company Oxa to create Shifft, a joint venture designed to position Dubai as a global hub for autonomous logistics and advance self-driving technology deployment across the Middle East and North Africa region. The partnership brings together local governance priorities and international autonomous mobility expertise, with explicit targets for commercial deployment and economic impact.
Shifft’s operational focus centers on autonomous vehicle deployment in high-volume logistics environments, specifically ports and airports. The venture aims to introduce its first scalable commercial deployment in Dubai before the end of 2027. The integrated platform will combine Oxa’s configurable self-driving software, Oxa Driver, with the company’s cloud-based fleet management system, Oxa Hub, alongside Oxa’s autonomy hardware designed to integrate with existing vehicle fleets. The resulting system will function as a fully integrated autonomous logistics and worksite intelligence product, enabling end-to-end operational deployment across customer sites.
The joint venture aligns directly with Dubai’s stated economic objectives. Khalifa Al Qama, chief of Dubai’s research, development and innovation ecosystem overseen by the Dubai Future Foundation, framed the partnership as essential to achieving the emirate’s goal to double foreign trade volume by 2033. “To achieve Dubai’s ambition of doubling foreign trade by 2033, we must continue to develop and deploy solutions that strengthen the speed, efficiency and resilience of our logistics sector,” Al Qama said. “Shifft reflects the purpose of the Dubai RDI Programme, bringing together global expertise and local capabilities to develop commercially viable solutions with real-world impact.”
The venture forms an integral component of Dubai’s research, development and innovation programme, launched in November 2024 by the Dubai Future Foundation. That programme explicitly aims to boost the knowledge-based economy, create high-tech jobs and establish Dubai as a regional research and development hub.
The autonomous logistics deployment represents one application of the broader strategic framework outlined in the Foundation’s July 2026 Future Opportunities report, which identified “reinventing mobility” as a key area for technological advancement. The Foundation’s foresight analysis proposed that breakthrough innovations in vehicle systems and wheels could reshape mobility, highlighting potential advances ranging from magnetic levitation and drone-inspired technologies to alternatives to rubber tyres that could reduce energy consumption and emissions. Within that context, autonomous vehicle deployment in logistics represents a near-term commercialization pathway for such technologies.
Paul Newman, founder and CEO of Oxa, positioned the partnership as an acceleration mechanism for the company’s industrial mobile autonomy technology. “Forming this new business with DFF will accelerate the commercialisation of Oxa’s industrial mobile autonomy technology, turning ordinary work vehicles into a digital workforce,” Newman said. “Operating in major industrial environments, we will leverage autonomy to unlock new levels of efficiency, reliability and safety for operators of industrial fleets.”
The Dubai Future Foundation operates with a stated mandate to provide a platform to reimagine, inspire and design Dubai’s future in collaboration with public and private sector partners, reflecting a broader strategic objective to position Dubai as one of the world’s foremost future cities. The Shifft partnership demonstrates how that institutional mandate translates into specific commercial ventures and technology deployments designed to support measurable economic outcomes and regional competitiveness in emerging sectors.
Whether the venture meets its 2027 commercial deployment target will serve as an early test of how effectively the Foundation’s programme can convert strategic foresight into operational reality at scale.