The Department of Culture and Tourism Abu of Dhabi announced on Thursday its plans to build a spherical immersive experience center on Yas Island, a 1.7 billion U.S. dollar project to open in 2029 that will accommodate up to 20,000 spectators.
The investment underscores the emirate's determination to expand cultural and tourism industries as a cornerstone of economic diversification despite lingering regional uncertainties.
The project aligns with Abu Dhabi's Tourism Strategy 2030, unveiled in 2024, which targets 39.3 million annual visitors and aims to lift tourism's contribution to GDP to 90 billion UAE dirhams (about 24.51 billion U.S. dollars) by the end of the decade.
Under that strategy, Abu Dhabi views cultural collaboration with China as essential, said Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, chairman of the Department of Culture and Tourism of the emirate.
"We see China as a cultural partner. We know what culture means to us. And you see that it's in performances. It's in music. We've hosted some of the best Chinese musicians to come here and play in Abu Dhabi, with an amazing crowd. So, I only see this cultural relationship even moving forward," he said.
UAE announces building of Sphere Abu Dhabi on Yas Island
Nearly 19.5 million people are facing crisis levels of acute food insecurity in Sudan, according to the latest United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis released on Friday.
Two out of every five people in Sudan are currently facing crisis levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above), said the IPC report released by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Program (WFP) and UNICEF.
As the civil conflict enters its fourth year, "conflict-driven displacement remains at extremely high levels, with close to 9 million people uprooted within Sudan as of the end of March 2026," said a joint news release by the three organizations.
Humanitarian access constraints remain among the most severe in the world. "Insecurity, bureaucratic impediments, attacks along supply routes, destruction of markets and means of production as well as restrictions on the movement of people and goods continue to prevent humanitarian actors from delivering assistance at the scale required," it said.
The FAO, WFP and UNICEF called for immediate cessation of hostilities, so that parties to the conflict could protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, and provide safe, rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access across conflict-affected areas.
19.5 million face acute food insecurity in Sudan: UN
