EXPERT COLUMN
ALIX PRESSLEY, DIRECTOR OF
STRATEGIC CONTENT
GITEX 2025 IN HINDSIGHT: KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS YEAR’ S EVENT
The long-awaited GITEX week began with a bustling metro ride, a brisk walk to the Dubai World Trade Centre and a quick pit-stop through security before arriving at our stand. The familiar hum of coffee machines firing up filled the air, stirring a sense of nostalgia from years previous.
We started as we meant to go on – with fruitful conversations that were seamless and thoroughly insightful, covering mostly AI innovation and data sovereignty advancements across the Middle East.
First in the hot seat was Raoul Van Engelshoven, Managing Director for the Middle East at Kyndryl. He provided insights into the ambitious growth plans of various nations, particularly in sectors like healthcare and government activity.
He emphasised Kyndryl’ s commitment to transforming industries through local and global execution, with a strong focus on cyber-resiliency. He highlighted the company’ s aim to ensure rapid recovery for clients in critical situations, showcasing their ability to restore operations within minutes.
We started as we meant to go on – with fruitful conversations that were seamless and thoroughly insightful.
Ericsson’ s Lucky La Riccia discussed the transformative opportunities presented by Ericsson’ s enabled networks, emphasising the role of AI and ML in optimising workload management. He highlighted the importance of a hybrid cloud setup that integrates onpremises, public and private cloud solutions to cater to diverse use cases.
Suhaib Zaheer, SVP at DigitalOcean and General Manager at Cloudways, on the other hand, explored how AI is revolutionising the way developers create and manage applications, highlighting the fragmented ecosystem that necessitates multiple tools.
Zaheer explained how DigitalOcean’ s Gradient AI provides a unified platform that simplifies this process, enabling developers to deploy thousands of agents quickly. This innovation allows smaller teams and individual developers to work more efficiently from anywhere, using natural language to interact with the cloud.
Offering his view was Safder Nazir, SVP for Huawei in the Middle East and Central Asia, who emphasised the potential of AI technologies to foster economic growth. He discussed the evolution from digital to smart and cognitive cities, with a future vision of autonomous cities. Nazir believes the region is well-positioned to lead in adopting advanced technologies.
Wajdi Khalid, Manager, Sales( Rest of Gulf, Turkey and Africa) at Recorded Future, discussed the concept of autonomous threat operations, allowing organisations to hunt for threats even during off-hours. He outlined the challenges analysts face in detecting and responding to threats and how these operations simplify the process.
He also noted the increasing maturity level of organisations in recognising the importance of threat intelligence and the significance of partnerships with leading cybersecurity vendors.
It’ s safe to say the week captured a unifying theme of AI-driven transformation and resilience across industries in the Middle East. From the bustling start to the insightful conversations, every discussion circled back to how AI, data sovereignty and cyber-resiliency are shaping the region’ s digital future. p
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