Google Cloud: Empowering organizations for a robust digital future

Google Cloud is committed to being a reliable partner for transformation and growth in the Middle East region, and sees great potential there. Abdul Rahman Al Thehaiban, Managing Director of Google Cloud Turkey, Middle East, and North Africa, emphasized the tech giant's top priorities in the region, including investing in its long-term digital future.

Artificial intelligence is being widely used to drive digital transformation in the region. An increasing number of companies are moving beyond simple experiments with generative AI and deploying it into core business processes. Many companies are using AI-powered virtual assistants to provide faster and more personalized customer service. In the retail industry, AI is being used to recommend products and enhance the shopper's experience.

Across many industries, AI is being used to analyze market trends and customer behavior, providing valuable insights for data-driven decision-making, and greatly improving efficiency and employee productivity through task automation. To fully leverage AI, companies need to take a strategic approach, choosing efficient and scalable AI models that meet their specific needs, and ensuring these models are seamlessly integrated with existing systems. Data security and privacy are paramount, while also building a culture of data literacy within the organization so that employees understand how to effectively use AI.

Google Cloud is committed to helping businesses address all of the above issues. Our Vertex AI and BigQuery platforms provide the tools and infrastructure to build, deploy, and manage AI solutions at scale that are secure and cost-effective. Our experts work with customers in the region to help them master the skills and processes needed to take full advantage of this technology.

As more businesses and organizations migrate to the cloud, cyber threats are also increasing. Google Cloud is helping businesses stay safe. In the Middle East, there is a growing number of sophisticated threats such as ransomware, phishing attacks, and attacks targeting critical infrastructure, which can cause significant financial losses, operational disruptions, and reputational damage. Google Cloud employs a multi-layered approach to help organizations build a robust security posture, a key part of which is proactive threat intelligence.

We leverage Google's global threat intelligence network and Mandiant's expertise to predict and prevent attacks before they happen. Our security operations platform uses AI to automate threat detection, investigation, and response, significantly reducing response times, which is critical. Our multi-cloud risk management platform provides a comprehensive view of cloud environments, helping customers prioritize the most critical risks.

Our cloud platform itself is designed with built-in security, providing inherent protection against many common threats. We also work closely with organizations to help them meet all relevant regional and global data privacy and security regulations. In summary, we combine cutting-edge technology with deep security expertise to help businesses in the Middle East stay ahead of evolving cyber threats and build a resilient digital future.

SAP recently launched its Business Technology Platform on Google Cloud in Saudi Arabia for regulated customers. The release of SAP's Business Technology Platform (BTP) on Google Cloud in Saudi Arabia is a significant step in the digital transformation of the Kingdom, especially for regulated industries and government entities. This fully demonstrates a firm commitment to innovation and compliance. Offering SAP BTP on local Google Cloud has several key advantages.

Saudi organizations can innovate faster, using SAP's integrated platform to develop and deploy new applications and services more quickly and efficiently. They can also maintain data sovereignty, complying with Saudi data residency and security regulations, which is critical for many. Local deployment can also reduce latency, thereby improving application performance. They can also leverage Google Cloud's scalable and AI-enabled infrastructure to support growth without significant upfront investment in hardware, and can benefit from SAP's extensive partner ecosystem. This partnership is directly related to Saudi Arabia's 2030 Vision, which is promoting digital transformation in key areas, fostering innovation, and contributing to the overall economic diversification of the Kingdom.

Our top priority is very clear: to empower organizations in the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey to achieve their digital transformation goals through the strategic use of AI, cybersecurity, and cloud technology. We see great growth potential in the region and are committed to being a trusted partner. In the coming years, we will focus on several key areas. We will help businesses integrate AI into their operations to improve efficiency, gain insights, and create new products and services. We are seeing customers in the region leveraging Google's AI supercomputing, our performance-optimized infrastructure, to train and fine-tune their own AI models to solve specific business problems.

We anticipate high demand for AI solutions in areas such as customer experience, predictive analytics, and process automation. Moreover, we are increasingly seeing AI agents playing an important role; AI agents are autonomous or semi-autonomous systems that can perform tasks and make decisions on behalf of users. Imagine AI agents handling complex customer service inquiries, optimizing supply chains in real-time, or even proactively managing cybersecurity threats. This is a rapidly evolving field, and we are investing heavily to enable our customers to use these powerful tools. We will also work to strengthen defenses against increasingly sophisticated cyber threats, leveraging our AI-powered security solutions, threat intelligence, and expert services.

Of course, providing the scalable and secure cloud infrastructure that businesses need to modernize IT, reduce costs, and scale operations is fundamental. This includes ensuring compliance with local data sovereignty requirements, and very importantly, empowering developers with access to cutting-edge tools. Last but not least, sustainability is key, so we are helping our customers reduce their carbon footprint. Google Cloud is investing heavily in these areas, and we are building strategic partnerships and developing solutions tailored to the specific needs of this diverse and vibrant region.

Since expanding to the region in 2023, one of Google Cloud's most important milestones has been the opening of new cloud regions in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. This provides local businesses and governments with faster, more secure, and compliant cloud services, directly addressing the growing need for data residency and low-latency performance. We have also established strong partnerships with leading businesses and government entities. For example, we are working with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) to establish an AI center, and we have reached a national alliance agreement with the Kuwaiti government to support their digital transformation roadmap.

We are also seeing widespread adoption of our AI and data analytics platforms across various sectors, demonstrating that we are bringing value to the region. We are actively supporting workforce training to ensure that the region can benefit from a skilled local talent pool. We are focused on local needs, building strong partnerships, and investing in the region's long-term digital future, and we are firmly committed to continuing this momentum and empowering organizations and businesses to achieve their transformation goals.