The Middle East and Africa (MEA) region is quickly establishing itself as one of the world’s most promising frontiers for AI-led digital transformation as AI transforms economies around the world. Industry executives, legislators, and businesses convened at the Global AI Show Abu Dhabi to examine how cloud and AI technologies are transforming infrastructure, finance, governance, and innovation throughout the region.
Carter Tian, Chief Solution Architect & AI Expert, representing Alibaba Cloud, gave a thorough explanation of Alibaba’s perspective on the development and expansion of MEA with regard to AI and the related long-term infrastructure investments, from sovereign cloud strategies to AI adoption across government, finance, smart cities, and startups, in an exclusive in-depth discussion at the Global AI Show.
What follows is a detailed feature capturing Alibaba Cloud’s vision for MEA, based entirely on the conversation held at the Global AI Show.
MEA as a Strategic Growth Market for Alibaba Cloud
The Middle East & Africa sits at the center of Alibaba Cloud’s long-term global strategy, driven by rapid digitization, strong government backing, and a growing demand for AI-native infrastructure.
How does Alibaba Cloud view the Middle East & Africa region in terms of strategic growth and long-term investment?
“Alibaba Cloud is committed to long-term investment in the Middle East and UAE market with robust infrastructure, local partnership, cutting-edge products and proven solutions, dedication to local talent development, as well as startup and developer support services. We view the Middle East as a region ripe with opportunities, driven by its rapid digital transformation across various sectors. It is set to be one of the leading emerging markets due to its thriving economy, tech-savvy population, and strategic location as a global trade hub. As one of the first global cloud service providers entering the region, Alibaba Cloud is deeply committed to the Middle East’s digital transformation roadmap by serving hundreds of customers from different sectors, especially from retail, finance, media, gaming, healthcare, public sector internet, etc. During GITEX Global 2025, we signed partnership agreements with several local key customers and partners including Wio Bank, ACCUMED, The Game Company, Byond Asia and Atos.”
Why MEA Is Uniquely Positioned for AI and Cloud Acceleration
Compared to mature cloud markets, MEA presents a unique combination of ambition, agility, and opportunity.
What differentiates MEA from other global markets when it comes to cloud and AI adoption potential?
“MEA stands out because it combines very high AI ambitions and cloud spend growth with relatively low legacy IT, strong government direction, and acute data sovereignty needs – creating “greenfield conditions where a fast-moving native AI provider can scale faster than in more mature markets. It is set to be one of the leading emerging markets due to its thriving economy, tech-savvy population, and strategic location as a global trade hub.The MEA cloud market is projected to be worth US$179.5 bn by 2032 with public cloud accounting for 59.2% of the market in 2024.
[https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/middle-east-africa-cloud-computing-market-113966]. GCC countries are projected to capture the largest share and highest growth within MEA, driven by national digital economy roadmaps, and heavy state and sovereign-fund backing for AI infrastructure. Compared with saturated North American and European markets, We position MEA as an AI-powered showcase, with our second data center in Dubai, which is also aligned with our RMB 380 billion (US$ 53 billion) global AI and cloud investment.”
Expanding Infrastructure, Partnerships, and Local Ecosystems
Alibaba Cloud’s MEA roadmap extends beyond infrastructure into deep ecosystem collaboration and localized innovation.
Can you share Alibaba Cloud’s roadmap for expanding its infrastructure and ecosystem presence across the MEA region?
“Alibaba Cloud is performing well in the Middle East,especially the UAE, as the market is growing at an exponential rate with more businesses turning to cloud-based solutions in the era of AI. Meanwhile, AI+Cloudstrategy has brought in unprecedented opportunities for us to drive businesses growth and innovation by supporting more local customers along their digitalization. In MEA, we lean heavily on a partnership-first model, MoUs with local players such as Hybrid to embed its services into local business and government ecosystems. During GITEX Global 2025, we signed partnership agreements with several local key customers and partners including WioBank, ACCUMED, The Game Company, Byond Asia and Atos.These alliances often go beyond resale, co-developing sector solutions (e.g., streaming, digital humans, fintech agents) that are tailored to Arabic language, regional UX, and regulatory priorities – more intensive localization than in some other regions.
We will continue to introduce leading products and proven solutions in AI and cloud computing to serve our local customers’ digital transformation needs (i.e., the latest financial products), expand our ecosystem with more local partners onboard to address sector-specific pain points, collaborate with more universities to enhance digital talent training for a digital-savvy workforce, (the training center launched last year is set to elevate digital competencies locally), and provide support and incentive programs to more MEA startups and developers to explore more opportunities.”
AI Adoption Across Government, Finance, and Smart Cities
AI adoption in MEA is accelerating fastest where national priorities intersect with real-world use cases.
Where do you see the strongest demand for AI-driven solutions in MEA today — government, finance, retail, or smart cities?
“Alibaba Cloud currently sees the strongest, most immediate AI-driven demand in financial services and smart governance initiatives in public sectors, with finance slightly in the lead due to live generativeAI use cases like AI-powered banking agents and digital onboarding with partners such as Wio Bank. Digital public sector programs across the Gulf are also major drivers as states embed AI into transport, citizen services, and urban operations, often under national AI and digital strategies. Retail and media are fast followers, using Alibaba Cloud’s AI and streaming solutions for personalization, digital humans, and omnichannel experiences.”
Cloud-Native AI and Enterprise Transformation
How is Alibaba Cloud helping MEA enterprises accelerate their digital transformation using cloud-native AI tools?
“Alibaba Cloud helps MEA enterprises accelerate digital transformation by combining local AI-ready infrastructure with cloud native platforms and generative AI tools. Its second Dubai data center delivers low latency, high resilience cloud, containers, databases, and big data services, giving regional customers scalable foundations for AI workloads. On top of this, cloud native AI suites and Kubernetes based MLOps help enterprises efficiently train, deploy, and auto scale models without managing complex infrastructure. Qwen Foundation Models and Model Studio provide a one stop environment to build AI agents for customer service, analytics, and automation, already used by MEA clients like Wio Bank and digital human provider BYOND Asia to launch AI powered services faster and at lower cost.”
Data Sovereignty, Security, and Localization
How important is data localization in MEA, and how is Alibaba Cloud tailoring its offerings to regional compliance requirements?
“Data localization has become a nonnegotiable pillar of digital policy in MEA as governments tighten rules on where citizen, financial, and health data can be stored and processed, particularly in hubs like the UAE and Saudi Arabia that mandate local residency for regulated sectors such as banking and healthcare. This is driving strong demand for sovereign and “incountry” clouds, with analysts highlighting sovereign cloud as a key growth area within a MEA cloud market projected to exceed US$ 200 billion in the coming years.
Data Security and privacy remains the top priority of Alibaba Cloud. We comply with the regulations and laws across the global regions where we operate. In the Middle East, Alibaba Cloud is tailoring our offerings by deploying local data centers and compliance frameworks that align with these rules, including multiple facilities in the UAE and a dedicated partner data center/platforming Saudi through the SCCC joint venture with stc, SCAI and SITE, designed explicitly to meet national data sovereignty and cybersecurity requirements. Our second data center in Dubai expands AI, storage, and database services while improving resilience and local performance, giving regulated customers in finance, healthcare, and government a fully in region option that satisfies emerging cloud sovereignty expectations.”
With rising cyber risks in the region, what steps is Alibaba Cloud taking to enhance cloud security for MEA customers?
“Through a comprehensive suite of native security tools, AI-powered threat detection, strong compliance posture, and massive infrastructure investment, we aim to be a secure, trusted environment for global enterprises – especially those navigating complex regulatory landscapes.
We are committed to complying with the local rules and regulations in the Middle East, and in other parts of the world that we operate in. As one of the first global cloud providers entering the market, we have continued to invest in the market and comply with the local regulations and laws as always since 2016.
Particularly, privacy protection and data security are always our top priority. We have built a full range of data security capabilities from physical computer rooms to IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), where we control the security risks through securing the storage, network and computing, and then our PaaS (Platform as a Service) and SaaS (Software as a Service) layers to create a trustworthy and secure environment. Today, Alibaba Cloud has more than 130 security and compliance accreditations worldwide. We deeply ingrain the concept of privacy protection and data security into our daily practices, making full use of the latest privacy technology to ensure our service delivery in a secure manner.”
Do you see demand for more local data centers in MEA, and what factors drive Alibaba Cloud’s expansion decisions?
“Alibaba Cloud clearly sees rising demand for cloud and AI adoptions in MEA, reflected in our decision to open a second Dubai facility in 2025 – nine years after the first – as part of an RMB 380 billion global AI and cloud infrastructure investment over three years. This expansion is driven by three main factors: fast-growing regional cloud and AI uptake, particularly in the Gulf; stringent data sovereignty and localization requirements that push enterprises and governments toward in-country infrastructure; and national digital agendas.”
Industry Transformation and Economic Impact
Sectors like oil and gas, logistics, retail, and finance dominate MEA. How is Alibaba Cloud enabling innovation in these industries?
“Alibaba Cloud is using local, AI-ready infrastructure and sector-specific solutions to catalyze innovation across MEA’s dominant industries. In finance, its MoU with Wio Bank combines the Qwen large language model, Platform for AI, and Dubai data centers to cocreate AI banking agents and generativeAI services, hosted locally to meet regulatory and latency needs.”
What impact could advanced cloud tools like generative AI and large language models have on MEA enterprises?
“Advanced cloud tools like generative AI and large language models could shift MEA enterprises from incremental digitization to step change productivity, new revenue, and faster innovation. Regional studies estimate AI could add around US$ 320 billion to Middle East economies by 2030, with McKinsey sizing GCC AI value at roughly 9% of combined GDP, underlining the scale of the opportunity.
On cloud, these models can automate content, code, and process workflows, where experiments show quality gains of 18 – 40% and cycle time reductions of 25 – 50% on tasks like drafting, analysis, and customer support – benefits that are especially powerful in service heavy sectors such as finance, telecom, and logistics that dominate MEA. Alibaba Cloud’s Qwen family illustrates how this translates into practice: over 1 million corporates and individuals have used Qwen on Model Studio, Alibaba’s AI development platform. Qwen based applications for customer engagement, analytics, and operations, proving that cloud hosted LLMs can be productized at scale rather than remaining pilots.”
Startups, Talent, and the Developer Ecosystem
How is Alibaba Cloud supporting SMEs and startups in the region to catch up with digital leaders?
“Alibaba Cloud is helping SMEs and startups in MEA close the gap with digital leaders by combining affordable infrastructure, skills, and ecosystem support. Its global startup and AI programs offer young companies up to around US$ 50,000 –120,000 in cloud credits, tailored architecture support, and go-to-market exposure, lowering the cost of experimenting with AI, data, and ecommerce at scale. In Dubai Internet City, our Alibaba Cloud Academy Training Center aims to train 5,000 people in the MEA region over the next five years, adding to more than 60,000 individuals already trained worldwide through 300+ courses and 16 professional certifications – directly building the cloud skills base that SMEs and startups need to modernize operations and innovate.”
Sustainability, Smart Cities, and the Future of AI in MEA
Sustainability is becoming a priority in the Middle East. How does Alibaba Cloud support greener, more energy-efficient cloud operations in the region?
“We are fully aligned with the UAE’s sustainability goals and are committed to building a greener digital future. Our approach to sustainable growth includes:
Energy-efficient data centers: We are committed to achieving carbon neutrality in our data centers by 2030.and Alibaba Cloud strives to become carbon neutral by 2030, the first within Alibaba Group.
Leveraging our “Energy Expert” platform: We offer our cloud customers our AI-powered carbon management platform, Energy Expert, which helps them monitor, analyze, and optimize their carbon emissions in real-time. This platform has been deployed in over 3,000 enterprises across 14 industries The platform has also been successfully used to optimize power use at events like the Paris 2024 Olympics, where it managed energy consumption across 35 venues.
Enabling a sustainable ecosystem: Our platform and partnerships support the development of sustainable technologies, from smart cities to green logistics, helping to drive wider environmental benefits across the regional economy.”
How does Alibaba Cloud envision AI contributing to the region’s future — particularly in smart cities, transportation, and public welfare?
“Alibaba Cloud sees AI as a core engine for MEA’s next phase of development, with smart cities, transport, and public welfare as priority arenas where cloud based AI can move from pilots to city scale impact. GCC smart city spending alone is projected to grow from about USD 145.5 billion in 2024 to over USD 900 billion by 2032, driven heavily by AI and 5G, and Alibaba Cloud positions its infrastructure and models as foundational for this buildout.
In public sectors, large language models and generative AI running serve as the “digital front door” for citizens – powering AI service agents, multilingual interfaces, and proactive eligibility checks for health, education, and social programs.”
Developer Ecosystem and Talent Growth
Developing local tech talent is crucial for MEA’s growth. What initiatives is Alibaba Cloud driving to upskill engineers, developers, and students?
“Alibaba Cloud treats talent as core infrastructure for MEA, combining bricks-and-mortar training hubs with university partnerships and global learning platforms.
Alibaba Cloud Academy’s Training Center in Dubai Internet City aims to train 5,000 people in MEA over a five-year period through instructor-led courses, workshops, and certifications for engineers, developers, and partners. This builds on its global Academy program, which has already trained more than 60,000 people since April 2023 via 300+ online/offline courses, 16 professional certifications, and 250 handson labs in collaboration with over 300 partners.
Through the Alibaba Cloud Academic Empowerment Program, we partner with universities such as the University of Birmingham Dubai and Westford University College to embed cloud and AI into curricula, providing students and faculty with free or subsidized access to learning platforms, labs, and industry-recognized certifications. These collaborations include advanced workshops, internship programs, and real world project exposure, creating a pipeline of cloud ready graduates who can immediately contribute to regional digital projects.”
How is Alibaba Cloud fostering a stronger ecosystem of partners, resellers, and ISVs within MEA?
“We are building a partner-led model in MEA, using structured programs, incentives, and enablement to grow a strong ecosystem of resellers, service partners, and ISVs. Our Global Partner Program gives MEA channel partners and ISVs tiered benefits: co-selling, marketing support, technical credits, local workshops, and certification training, helping them design, migrate, and operate cloud solutions for end users. Globally, we work with more than 12,000 partners and have committed US$1 billion to upgrade our partner ecosystem and customer services, with a “Regional Accelerator” model that localizes collaboration and incentives, based on the market’s digital maturity – including in MEA. In this region, we pair these programs with on-ground initiatives, such as upgraded local services and the training center in Dubai Internet City, helping 5,000 regional talents and 100+ startups and customers with migration support and skills over the next five years.”
Shaping the Future of MEA’s Digital Economy
Looking ahead, Alibaba Cloud’s long-term goals, which are closely aligned with regional national digital agendas, are focused on AI leadership, fintech enablement, and public-sector transformation.
What is your long-term vision for Alibaba Cloud’s role in shaping MEA’s digital economy over the next decade?
“Our three pillars are AI leadership, fintech enablement, and public sector transformation. We’ll continue investing in local infrastructure, expanding our partner ecosystem, and supporting national visions like UAE Centennial 2071. The biggest AI trends shaping industries include generative AI (creating content, automating reports), hyper-personalized services (tailored products), and AI-driven automation (handling repetitive tasks faster). These advancements will boost efficiency, cut costs, and improve customer experience – but companies must balance innovation with privacy and fairness. Meanwhile, AI+Cloud strategy has brought in unprecedented opportunities for industry to drive businesses growth and innovation with scalable, robust and secure infrastructure and cutting-edge AI solutions.”
The discussion with Alibaba Cloud at the Global AI Show highlights the event’s function as a gathering place where businesses, policymakers, and global technology leaders come together to influence the direction of AI and digital economies. Such discussions emphasize the significance of cooperation, creativity, and long-term vision in creating resilient, sovereign, and inclusive digital ecosystems as AI adoption quickens throughout the Middle East and Africa.
About Alibaba Cloud
Alibaba Cloud, founded in 2009, is the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group. It provides a comprehensive suite of cloud computing services to customers worldwide, including elastic computing, database, storage, networking, security, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence solutions. Alibaba Cloud is committed to empowering businesses, governments, and developers with scalable, secure, and sustainable cloud infrastructure to drive digital transformation across industries and regions.
About Global AI Show
Global AI Show is a flagship international event bringing together global AI leaders, policymakers, technology innovators, enterprises, and investors to explore the transformative impact of artificial intelligence on economies, governments, and societies. Hosted across key global markets, the event serves as a premier platform for thought leadership, strategic dialogue, and collaboration, showcasing cutting-edge AI technologies, real-world use cases, and the future of intelligent digital ecosystems.
Media Contact
For media inquiries, interviews, or partnership opportunities, please contact:
Global AI Show Media Team
Email: [media@globalaishow.com]
Website: [www.globalaishow.com]
