Friday 31 July 2026 2:34 pm
Gitex Global 2024, the world’s largest tech and startup event, which commenced at the Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC), United Arab Emirates. 15th October 2024
Understanding the GCC’s AI strategy is essential for unlocking opportunities from the UK-GCC Free Trade Agreement and the region’s $150bn AI push.AI is a powerful accelerant for solving complex challenges.The GCC’s AI strategy calls for heavy investment in digital infrastructure, and the UK-GCC FTA is creating new opportunities to capitalize on it.What’s driving AI adoption in the GCCIn the era of Industry 4.0 and hyper-connectivity, the race is on to future-proof economies. Accordingly, the GCC is pouring resources into the new intelligence paradigm, reshaping education curricula to hone the skills base required.These graduates will increasingly populate AI-native start-ups, firms whose entire core product, workflows, and value propositions orbit around AI.The economic case: A $150bn opportunityThe GCC’s regulatory environment was drafted to ease deployment and AI momentum is increasingly shifting from state to company-level. Data-center projects, for example, open their doors for business within 18–24 months, compared to around 36–72 months in the US.Sector research indicates that AI adoption promises a potential gain of $150bn for constituent GCC economies, contingent upon building scale.To achieve this, firms must integrate AI into their business models based on clear strategies.Comprehensive AI adoption can also close the GCC’s productivity gap, raising industrial output volumes from existing infrastructure. Here, Agentic AI promises a particularly transformative impact on workplace performance and innovation.To explore this topic further, TBY spoke to Ahmed Jaber Al-Faifi, Senior Vice President and Managing Director of SAP Middle East and North Africa, a firm that has collaborated on Saudi gigaprojects.From his own forecasting process, he recounts a prime example of AI’s capabilities. When creating, “… a forecast based on historical performance and pipeline, […] the AI module within our dashboard generated a more optimistic forecast; some 25 per cent higher than mine.”While initially skeptical, “…the AI provided rationale based on granular deal-level data, flagging risk factors I hadn’t considered. Over time, it proved to be accurate.”Highlighting how predictive models augment executive strategy rather than automate it away, Al-Faifi emphasized:
