By Dmitry Kaminskiy, General Partner, Deep Knowledge Group
Just as Silicon Valley emerged from Cold War R&D, semiconductors, and startup culture, the next global innovation epicenter will be built around the longevity economy. And the race to lead this transformation is already underway, with regions like the Gulf gaining strategic ground.
The longevity economy gains ground globally
The longevity economy, encompassing all economic activity driven by the needs and potential of people aged 50 and over, is a multi-trillion-dollar engine of future GDP growth. According to Deep Knowledge Group, the longevity industry was estimated at $26.5 trillion in 2022 and is expected to reach $33 trillion in 2026. But the sector has evolved beyond managing aging, to extending healthspan, enabling active aging, and designing systems where longevity translates into productivity, creativity, and growth.
MENA’s strategic positioning in the global longevity race
In 2025, people over the age of 50 are expected to make up almost one in five of the GCC population, up from one in seven in 2020. Also, the median age of the GCC population is expected to rise from 32 in 2022 to 51 by 2100. While most discussions about aging economies focus on Japan, Europe, or the U.S., the MENA region has emerged as a bold and unexpected contender. Why? Because unlike mature economies where aging is already straining public systems, MENA countries are designing future-ready longevity infrastructure from the ground up, leveraging AI, robotics, digital health, and genomics.
A growing momentum in KSA
Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 explicitly includes raising life expectancy from 74 to 80 years by 2030, linking population health directly to national competitiveness. Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health announced last April that the average life expectancy has risen from 74 years in 2016 to 78.8 years in 2024, driven by improvements in healthcare quality and preventive measures under the Health Sector Transformation Program. The Ministry promoted healthier lifestyles through nationwide campaigns encouraging walking and daily wellness practices, while also implementing reforms such as banning hydrogenated oils, cutting salt in foods, and mandating calorie labeling. These efforts, supported by intergovernmental collaboration, have strengthened public health, reduced chronic diseases, and improved quality of life.
Accelerated activity in the UAE
The UAE is home to cutting-edge longevity initiatives, such as the UAEU Genomics Laboratory and a growing base of over 1,000 healthtech startups, many operating at the intersection of AI, aging, and preventive medicine. In June 2024, the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DoH) signed an MoU with Illumina, a global leader in DNA sequencing, to advance precision medicine and clinical genomics research. Also, Dubai hosted the Middle East’s first Longevity Science Semester Symposium on 13–14 February 2025. The event explored pathways to extend health span through breakthroughs in longevity science, precision medicine, and personalized diagnostics.
Precision and preventive healthcare
AgeTech is a systems-level response to a new economic and social reality, one in which people routinely live beyond 90 or 100, and where productivity, wellbeing, and meaning must span multiple life chapters. The key domains of AgeTech include four main focus areas. First, precision and preventive healthcare, where AI-powered diagnostics, wearable biosensors, digital twins, and personalized medicine platforms enable early detection of diseases, proactive intervention, and chronic condition management. The MENA region is advancing in this space. For example, the UAE’s genome strategy and Saudi Arabia’s investment in regenerative medicine and stem cell therapy are creating new platforms for healthy lifespan extension.
Beyond hospitals
The second focus area is that AgeTech ecosystems go beyond hospitals. They include age-friendly urban design, mobility technologies, smart homes, and intergenerational living models. For example, NEOM embeds longevity into city design, combining biotech, wellness, and high-performance lifestyles in urban planning.
Workforce and learning
The third area tackles age-inclusive workforce and learning. As retirement ages rise, older adults must be enabled to remain active contributors. AgeTech platforms include continuous education, cognitive tech, and platforms that match late-career professionals with flexible, meaningful work. Saudi Arabia’s labor reforms, raising the retirement age to 65, are a critical first step in shifting cultural and policy assumptions about aging workforces.
Finance and insurance innovation
The last focus area considers finance and insurance innovation. We started witnessing the emergence of insurance products tailored to elderly, from life-stage investment strategies to reverse mortgages and eldercare insurance. Gulf insurers and pension funds are beginning to explore longevity risk as a design challenge and opportunity.
The MENA region’s edge
The conditions that once gave rise to Silicon Valley, a combination of capital, talent, infrastructure, and visionary regulation, are now visible across the Gulf. The MENA region’s AgeTech leadership will depend on how quickly it can align policy frameworks, data sovereignty, and healthtech scaling. It also depends on the agility of public-private ecosystems where research, capital, and commercialization are tightly aligned and regional AgeTech hubs that attract entrepreneurs, medical researchers, and technologists from across the globe.
