Background
Dubai Police Academy is the emirate's centre for policing, legal and security education, with a lineage running from the Police School of 1968 through the Police College created under Law No. (1) of 1987 to the academy established by Law No. (11) of 2005. In July 2022 it opened a large-area virtual reality training environment called the Virtual Field of Operations, described at launch as the first of its kind in the region.
The deployment
Rather than seating trainees at fixed simulator stations, the Virtual Field of Operations converts a hall into a tracked play area. Participants move freely on foot in headsets, carrying instrumented weapon replicas and numbered body harnesses, while camera rigs mounted on overhead truss track each person through the space. Because everyone shares one virtual scene, teams can clear rooms, respond to incidents and coordinate with each other as they would on the ground.
The environment covers more than 365 scenarios reconstructing situations officers encounter in the field, and serves both general police training and specialist unit rehearsal. Artificial intelligence drives the behaviour within those scenarios.
Who runs it
Major General Dr Ghaith Ghanem Al Suwaidi, Acting Assistant Commander-in-Chief for Academic Affairs and Training, oversaw the launch. Colonel Sultan Ali Khamis Al Shamsi, Director of the Specialized Training Department, said the initiative was built to train officers and specialist teams on police operations virtually, using VR and artificial intelligence across the scenario library. Captain Abdullah Al Shamsi, Head of the Police Operations Department, characterised the approach as a safe setting in which to build modern skills, valuing its flexibility and the ease with which trainees can be tested and assessed.
Launch photography of the training field shows it branded to Refense, a Swiss supplier of large-area VR training systems for law enforcement and special forces whose platform pairs wireless full-body VR gear with a motion-tracking field and a scenario control centre. The academy has not named its supplier in published statements.
The 2026 law
On 15 March 2026, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, issued Dubai Police Academy Law No. (7) of 2026, replacing the 2005 law. It requires a complete digital transformation of the academy's educational, training, research and service activities, and directs it to build a digital environment using artificial intelligence, virtual reality and advanced simulation alongside secure, integrated systems meeting national and international standards.
The same law rebuilds the institution's governance, creating a Board of Trustees as the highest authority over the academy's affairs and a Scientific Council chaired by the Dean. It sets out degree-granting powers spanning law, police sciences, and security and criminal sciences, from higher diplomas through to master's and doctoral degrees, and obliges nominated students to serve at least five years in the police after graduating.
Why it matters
The practical effect is to move immersive training from a standalone initiative to a statutory requirement. Where the Virtual Field of Operations was an experiment in 2022, the 2026 law makes AI, VR and simulation part of how the academy is obliged to teach across its degree programmes and professional courses.
