UMEX 2026 — The UAE’s domestic defense champion EDGE Group signed over $200 million in new deals during day one of the Unmanned Systems Exhibition (UMEX) in Abu Dhabi.
The seventh edition of the show, which coincides with the Simulation and Training Exhibition (SimTEX), saw a growth of 34 percent in exhibition space, reflecting the steady growth in the unmanned and autonomous industry. Since their launch in 2015, UMEX and SimTEX have brought together local and international players specialized in unmanned systems for civil and defense capabilities across air, land, and sea.
As Manea Abdulkarim Al Mansoori, official spokesperson for the Tawazun Council for Defense Enablement, shared in a media briefing today, the number of participating official delegates increased by 81 percent in comparison to previous years, and hail from over 90 countries.
Tawazun is an Emirati government entity tasked with overseeing the development of the local defense industry and transferring technology to help create a local domestic supply chain for required advanced military and security systems.
As usual for any defense conference in the UAE, EDGE Group took the lead in announcements.
The company announced it has been contracted to research and develop two new variants of its Scorpio small UAV, known as Scorpio S and Scorpio M, valued at over 28.88 million AED ($7.8 million), as well as a gyrocopter valued at 22 million AED ($6 million) for logistics purposes. EDGE Group is also set to deliver an undisclosed number of the long-range heavy-lift ANAVIA HT-100 UAVs under a contract valued at 661.19 million AED ($180 million).
Additionally, another contract valued at 167.71 million AED ($45.7 million) was secured for Ramah International Group’s subsidiary Diveco to deliver Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) to the UAE.
Making its first appearance in a trade show was a new Abu Dhabi-based company, dubbed SIRBAI, introducing a product that it says was developed for the first time by a local company in the Middle East and North Africa region.
The system offered by SIRBAI is a software that enables UAVs to perform multi-tasked autonomous swarm operations. According to SIRBAI Chief Technology Officer Dario Albani, a swarm of UAVs can be controlled by a single operator, with some platforms performing surveillance, others acting as loitering weapons, and others performing electronic warfare tasks.
Albani said that the software has the ability to demonstrate real-time decision making: “We’re talking about real intelligence and distributed intelligence across the different units” he told Breaking Defense. We have active decision-making on top of the platform to what they are perceiving in the environment.”
SIRBAI will provide a local solution to advanced technology that is currently offered only by foreign companies. This demonstrates the UAE’s investment in the localization of the defense industry, in general, and AI-enabled autonomous systems in particular, the company stressed.