RAK’s Innovation City launches world’s first blockchain-based digital business identity

Innovation City, the UAE’s premier AI-powered free zone in Ras Al Khaimah, today launched the world’s first blockchain-based digital business identity system. Every company registered here now receives a sovereign, living, cryptographically verifiable identity powered by IOPn’s native layer on blockchain, OPN chain.

This is not an upgrade. This is reimaging the architecture of how businesses exist, prove themselves, and interact in the 21st century.

For the first time in history, a business licence is no longer a static PDF or a line in a government database. It is a dynamic, immutable, soulbound digital asset, removing reliance on centralised intermediaries and drastically reducing verification uncertainty.

Aligned with the UAE's national strategic imperative

The timing is no coincidence. The UAE government has just announced its bold directive to transition 50 per cent of federal government sectors, services, and operations to agentic AI within two years. The digital business identity makes it easier for those intelligent agents to autonomously process licences, permits, compliance checks, taxation, and cross-border interactions at machine speed.

Innovation City has delivered it

“Today we don’t just register companies, we give them a soul on the blockchain,” said Paul Dawalibi, CEO of Innovation City. “For decades business identity has been trapped in paper, PDFs, and fragile databases – slow, opaque, and built for a world that no longer exists. We are ending that era.

“Every enterprise in Innovation City now carries a living, verifiable digital identity that travels with it across borders, platforms, and straight into the age of intelligent agents. Ras Al Khaimah isn’t following the future. We are writing it. One more thing: the companies that claim their place on this chain today will lead the global economy tomorrow. Everyone else will be explaining why they’re still using yesterday’s tools.”

Mojtaba Asadian, CEO of IOPn, added: “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. Cryptographically secure. Evolving. Interoperable. Compliant.

“When Innovation City chose OPN Chain to power the world’s first on-chain business identities, they didn’t just pick a technology – they chose the infrastructure of digital sovereignty. Together, we are proving that the future of enterprise is not centralised databases or fragmented systems. It is sovereign, verifiable, and alive on-chain.”

Why this matters, now and forever

Radical transparency and auditability: Every ownership change, compliance update, and verification is permanently recorded and publicly auditable.

Instant, trustless verification: Banks, regulators, investors, and AI agents can confirm authenticity in seconds, not days or weeks.

Fraud reduction: It significantly reduces the risk of document fraud, beneficial ownership and shell company formation.

AI-native readiness: This is the exact infrastructure required for agentic AI to operate at government scale. Without it, autonomous systems cannot safely or reliably interact with businesses.

Global interoperability: It is built on a high-performance, EVM-compatible Layer 1 (10,000+ TPS, sub-second finality).

Long-term competitive advantage: Companies that secure their digital business identity with Innovation City today position themselves for preferential access to AI-powered government services, faster integrations with global partners and institutions, enhanced trust, credibility, operational efficiency, and frictionless participation in the emerging global digital economy. This is not a nice-to-have. It is rapidly becoming table stakes.

Innovation City has once again proven why it is the most forward-looking free zone in the UAE. While others promise digital transformation, Innovation City is delivering digital sovereignty and a new global standard. While others prepare for AI, Innovation City is building the verifiable identity layer that makes AI government possible.

This is the moment business identity stops being an administrative burden and becomes a strategic superpower.

The future of commerce has a new address. It starts in Innovation City.

This article was originally published on Khaleej Times .
You can find the original version here.