The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has emerged as a buzzing hub of the Cloud & Data Center industry in the Middle East. Over the last few years, the KSA has also unveiled its own ambitious plans for digital transformation in the form of Saudi Vision 2030.
Several global players have already set shop here. Those who aren’t here yet, are making a beeline for Riyadh, Jeddah or Dammam. Those who are already here, are hungry for more and expanding rapidly.
Take the case of Google, that is all set to unveil its Saudi Cloud Region on November 15. In a message on its website to its customers and everyone who wants to bet on KSA’s digital future, it says, “A new cloud region has arrived to Saudi Arabia to help your business forge ahead, make smarter data-driven decisions, and scale to serve your customers better. With the availability of faster and more secure cloud infrastructure, innovation and rapid development will be within reach of every company.”
The event will be presided over by Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian and Google Cloud’s Country General Manager for KSA Bader Almadi. Google Cloud hopes its new project will help businesses in KSA realise their goal of deriving the full benefits of hybrid and multi-cloud architectures. Th event can be attended online and will have multiple presentations and sessions explaining various elements of what Google Cloud is offering.
Google is also betting big on Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabling this journey. It says, that the launch event will have a session on “An Introduction to Duet AI in Google Cloud” which will “explore the powerful features of Duet AI, such as AI-driven code assistance directly in integrated development environments to increase developer productivity, AI-backed operations to help operators better manage cloud infrastructure and application, AI-powered data exploration, and Duet AI in AppSheet that empowers business users to build apps in the cloud.”
The launch will also have sessions on BigQuery Omni, Looker and even AI and Machine Learning infrastructure.
The Google Cloud Region will not be the first such kind of digital infrastructure in the region. Oracle already has a Cloud Region in Jeddah and is planning one in KSA’s capital city of Riyadh, and yet another in the under-construction futuristic city of NEOM. Earlier this year it had committed to investing US$ 1.5 Billion to meet the rapidly growing demand for its Cloud services in KSA.
W.Media will bring to more from the launch that will take place in a few hours, so watch this space!
