Best of LinkedIn: GITEX Global 2025

00:00:00: This episode is provided by Thomas Allgaier and Frennus, based on the most relevant LinkedIn posts talking about Geitech's global twenty twenty-five.

00:00:07: Frennus supports ICT enterprises with market and competitive intelligence, decoding emerging technologies, customer insights, regulatory shifts, and competitor strategies, so product teams and strategy leaders don't just react, but shape the future.

00:00:20: Welcome back.

00:00:21: So today our mission is really to dig into the essential intelligence coming out of Gigatex Global in Dubai.

00:00:31: From everything we've seen, this wasn't just your average tech show.

00:00:34: Not at all.

00:00:34: The signals we picked up point to something bigger.

00:00:37: A really foundational shift happening in the GCC, moving from an oil-based economy towards a data-driven

00:00:43: way.

00:00:43: Exactly.

00:00:44: And we're aiming to cut through maybe the usual

00:00:46: hype.

00:00:46: But get to the core signal.

00:00:47: What we saw was practical, scaled digital transformation.

00:00:51: It's about how AI, cloud, cybersecurity, they aren't just concepts there anymore.

00:00:55: They're actually being built into the core architecture.

00:00:57: Precisely.

00:00:58: For governments, for big enterprises, we're talking about real infrastructure, serious policy, tangible stuff happening right now.

00:01:04: Okay, let's get into it then.

00:01:06: If this huge regional transformation is underway, AI seems to be the engine room.

00:01:12: Definitely.

00:01:13: Yaku Ali Muhammad, among others, noted this feeling on the floor that AI isn't some niche topic anymore.

00:01:19: No, it's the backbone.

00:01:20: It connects everything.

00:01:21: Yeah.

00:01:21: I think Kapil S put it really well.

00:01:23: The whole conversation shifted.

00:01:25: It's not about what AI could do.

00:01:27: It's

00:01:27: about what's inevitable.

00:01:28: That's the word.

00:01:29: Inevitable.

00:01:30: And this inevitability, it's really anchored in policy and governance.

00:01:35: Yeah.

00:01:35: Anna Tutova highlighted H.E.

00:01:37: Omar Sultan Alalama's focus on responsible AI in the UAE.

00:01:42: And they're not just talking about it, are they?

00:01:44: Not at all.

00:01:44: They're setting benchmarks.

00:01:45: Yeah.

00:01:45: Like the world's first AI policy for national elections.

00:01:49: Right.

00:01:49: Requiring candidates to declare if they've used AI.

00:01:52: for transparency, that's governance taking the lead.

00:01:55: But governance needs the hardware to back it up.

00:01:58: And Nikhil Hammerjani pointed out this critical shift.

00:02:01: Sovereign AI isn't just a concept on paper now.

00:02:04: It's becoming actual physical infrastructure.

00:02:06: Exactly, physical national infrastructure, which means serious capital investment in compute power.

00:02:12: And the scale is just... while staggering.

00:02:16: Carrington Mallon flagged two huge announcements.

00:02:19: First, Judah is launching this enormous AI park, five hundred thousand square meters

00:02:24: and targeting one gigawatt.

00:02:25: capacity.

00:02:26: One gigawatt that's hard to even picture.

00:02:28: It really is.

00:02:29: That's not just a big data center.

00:02:30: It's like a power station dedicated purely to AI compute.

00:02:34: It signals this long term strategic bet on regional data sovereignty.

00:02:39: A real challenge to the, you know, established global data hubs.

00:02:42: Absolutely.

00:02:42: And then at the same time core forty two.

00:02:45: launched its platform.

00:02:46: Right, a self-service pays you go AI cloud.

00:02:49: So they build the massive capacity, but also make that power accessible, like right away for local businesses.

00:02:54: Which all depends on the silicon underneath, doesn't

00:02:56: it?

00:02:56: It does.

00:02:56: Andy Amati mentioned being seriously impressed by cerebral systems.

00:03:00: They were showcasing their WSE-III chip.

00:03:02: Way for scale.

00:03:03: The stacks on that were pretty wild.

00:03:04: Four trillion transistors, a hundred and twenty five petaflops.

00:03:08: What does that actually mean in practice, though?

00:03:10: OK, so think about the speed difference.

00:03:12: It's the gap between running a basic query and performing like real time complex reasoning, the kind of speed you'd need for immediate national security modeling or advanced scientific research.

00:03:24: I see this WSE three chip.

00:03:26: It's designed for inference that's apparently twenty times faster than top GPUs.

00:03:31: So complex AI models.

00:03:32: can be deployed almost instantly.

00:03:34: That's the kind of hardware foundation underpinning the policy and the ambition we're seeing.

00:03:38: Okay, so that heavy investment in infrastructure really shows how serious the UAE is about AI.

00:03:45: And you see that seriousness most clearly, I think, in how quickly the GCC governments are rolling this out for citizen services.

00:03:52: That's the direct link, isn't it?

00:03:53: The compute power gets immediately put to work transforming public service.

00:03:57: And the big launch everyone was talking about was Abu Dhabi's AutoGov.

00:04:00: Described by several people as the world's first AI public servant, which is a bold claim.

00:04:06: Very bold.

00:04:07: Let's look at what it actually does.

00:04:08: Well,

00:04:08: Yakub Ali Muhammad and others noted the Ten Am platform, which uses AutoGov, is now automating over eleven hundred services.

00:04:16: Eleven?

00:04:16: Yeah.

00:04:17: Things like license renewals, utility payments, even health care appointments.

00:04:20: It just runs in the background.

00:04:22: Khanda Govindu, MBNDHU, VURM, mentioned it's part of this huge, thirteen billion AED digital strategy.

00:04:29: And the goal is a hundred percent automation by twenty twenty seven.

00:04:32: That's

00:04:32: incredibly ambitious.

00:04:34: It really is.

00:04:34: A hundred percent automation target by twenty twenty seven assumes, well, basically perfect data quality and absolutely no old IT systems getting in the way.

00:04:44: The potential GDP boost, twenty four billion AED is massive, of course.

00:04:48: But it does make you ask, is the underlying data infrastructure really truly ready for that level of immediate.

00:04:54: perfect end-to-end automation.

00:04:56: That's

00:04:56: a big question for the next couple of years, I suppose.

00:04:59: And this intelligence push also goes into safety and mobility.

00:05:02: Dubai's RTA showed off eleven new smart mobility innovations.

00:05:05: Metjina Moidiu noted that.

00:05:07: Some aim to cut accidents by fifty percent using AI.

00:05:09: But maybe the most striking use of vision AI, which Suhrar Jessens of Aibriheen both highlighted, was the UAE's new AI patrol cars.

00:05:17: Ah yes, tell us about those.

00:05:18: They sound pretty futuristic.

00:05:19: They kind of are.

00:05:20: Mohammed Afzal Malikath described them fully.

00:05:23: electric vehicles.

00:05:24: Six high-res cameras on board.

00:05:26: Six

00:05:26: cameras.

00:05:26: Yep.

00:05:27: Using AI pattern matching to spot visa or residency violators instantly, in real time.

00:05:33: It shifts law enforcement into a much more predictive space, very visibly.

00:05:38: And on the maybe less dramatic side, but still impactful for citizens.

00:05:42: Right.

00:05:42: A quick win.

00:05:43: Dr.

00:05:44: Hemaveethi S. pointed to Dubai Municipality's partnership with goldpe.ai.

00:05:49: They launched an AI-powered gold testing kiosk.

00:05:53: Gold testing?

00:05:54: How does that work?

00:05:55: It

00:05:55: takes the traditional process, which apparently takes about three days.

00:05:58: Okay.

00:05:58: And turns it into a forty second instant test.

00:06:01: Wow.

00:06:01: Forty seconds instead of three days.

00:06:03: Makes you think, doesn't it?

00:06:04: If AI can nail a complex high-trust task like that so quickly, what other traditional workflows are next?

00:06:10: That speed in the public sector brings us right back to the bedrock data.

00:06:14: Amarkana Garage had a quote that really stuck out, something like,

00:06:17: Control over your data defines control of your AI future.

00:06:20: That was it.

00:06:21: Data sovereignty was clearly a central theme.

00:06:23: And that immediately creates demand for local hosting.

00:06:26: Solutions that meet regional privacy rules.

00:06:29: Matthew Gray announced Telium launching its own availability zone there.

00:06:34: making it the only customer data platform CDP hosted right in the UAE.

00:06:38: Exactly.

00:06:39: And they're using AWS specifically to make sure they comply with those strict local data privacy laws.

00:06:45: This local focus seems to be driving some big partnerships, too.

00:06:48: Integrating whole tech stacks.

00:06:50: Definitely.

00:06:51: Haifa Abu Farah mentioned Dell Technologies and Emirates MBD, signing an MU to boost AI innovation.

00:06:58: And Sushant Kahl reported Oracle and Adjman Bank partnering up.

00:07:01: Focusing on cloud infrastructure.

00:07:03: for what, agility?

00:07:04: Agility and scalability, yeah.

00:07:06: The vendors aren't just selling products, they're embedding their tech deep into these national digital plans.

00:07:10: Hassan Dababneh, observe something interesting here about industry roles changing.

00:07:14: Oh right, with Huawei.

00:07:15: Yeah.

00:07:16: He noted how their innovations are basically turning traditional telecom companies to telcos.

00:07:19: Into

00:07:20: techos.

00:07:20: Exactly.

00:07:21: By building AI capabilities right into the core ICT stack.

00:07:24: Making intelligence available everywhere.

00:07:26: Okay.

00:07:27: But intelligence everywhere means the attack surface gets much bigger, right?

00:07:30: Which must mean a shift in how we think about security.

00:07:33: Absolutely.

00:07:34: Juha Alalorula really emphasized this point.

00:07:37: Security can't be an afterthought anymore, especially as we head towards the quantum era.

00:07:42: It has to be built in from the start.

00:07:44: And this thinking seems to be moving beyond just protecting individual companies.

00:07:48: Yes, it's about national resilience, even cross-border.

00:07:52: Mark L. Madrid introduced AccuSites.

00:07:55: Their focus is building a cyber resilience alliance between the U.S.

00:07:58: and the UAE.

00:07:59: An alliance?

00:08:00: How does that work?

00:08:01: The strategic goal is to extend that top-tier enterprise-level cybersecurity protection down to smaller, maybe more vulnerable businesses, linking innovation hubs in the UAE and Texas.

00:08:11: That makes sense, protecting the whole supply chain, essentially.

00:08:14: What about specific deep tech security solutions?

00:08:17: Any standouts on Zero Trust?

00:08:19: Juha Alorela also.

00:08:29: So data can only go out, not in?

00:08:32: Precisely.

00:08:32: And also, hashtag Uniscanner, which monitors critical sites by passively detecting emitting devices.

00:08:39: phones, smartwatches, things like that.

00:08:42: Very much deep defense for operational technology.

00:08:44: So the overall mindset, as Dr.

00:08:47: Swapnil Parikh put it,

00:08:48: has shifted from reactive defense to proactive intelligence.

00:08:53: Using AI for threat detection, focusing on zero trust models.

00:08:56: It's all about building and maintaining that digital trust in the super connected

00:09:01: world.

00:09:01: Okay, let's move up the stack to where AI is being applied in business.

00:09:05: Finance seems like a key area.

00:09:07: For sure.

00:09:07: AI is seriously changing how investment workflows happen.

00:09:11: Ashish Aipkashi announced a partnership between Inception AI and Bain and Company.

00:09:15: To

00:09:16: speed up applied AI adoption.

00:09:18: Yeah,

00:09:18: specifically using Inceptions in Alpha product.

00:09:20: It's designed to transform those core investment processes, deal sourcing, due diligence, monitoring portfolios.

00:09:26: So AI is now directly involved in major capital allocation decisions by investors and C-sweets.

00:09:31: Which

00:09:31: means you need absolute rock solid confidence in the AI's output.

00:09:34: Bring us back to data quality again.

00:09:36: Always.

00:09:37: It demands total data discipline.

00:09:38: Hmm.

00:09:39: Gaia Camillieri really drove this home in her FinTech Tuesdays talk.

00:09:43: Her message was blunt.

00:09:44: No data discipline equals no AI.

00:09:47: Strong

00:09:47: words.

00:09:48: She warned companies about shipping, quote, risk dressed up as intelligence and argued that the return on investment, the ROI, has to be just chasing novelty every single time.

00:09:59: If your AI is built on bad data, or isn't governed properly... You're

00:10:02: just scaling up a potential liability.

00:10:04: Exactly.

00:10:05: Not an asset.

00:10:06: That really raises fundamental questions about value, especially when AI gets really good.

00:10:10: Imod Ash Uni had a fascinating observation on this.

00:10:13: Yeah,

00:10:13: the idea that if AI ends up writing, say, eighty percent of the code, what's left for humans?

00:10:18: Judgment, imagination, trust.

00:10:20: the uniquely human elements.

00:10:22: Right.

00:10:22: And that, he suggested, could completely flip the business model.

00:10:26: How so?

00:10:27: Pricing might shift away from paying for time or lines of code or the tech itself towards outcome as a service.

00:10:33: Outcome as a service.

00:10:34: Meaning clients only pay for the measurable results achieved, like specific efficiency gains or hitting certain market targets, not just for the software that was built.

00:10:42: That forces tech providers to be totally accountable for the value they deliver.

00:10:47: A huge shift.

00:10:48: Total alignment between vendor strategy, client value, and trust.

00:10:52: Hashtag, hashtag, outro.

00:10:53: A really interesting potential future there.

00:10:56: Before we finish this deep dive, here's that final provocative thought for you.

00:10:59: Something Ronan goes brought up concerning the global finance picture seen at GITEX.

00:11:04: Okay.

00:11:04: With stablecoins, especially US dollar ones, projected to grow significantly.

00:11:10: Does this lead us towards a kind of redollarization of global financial flows?

00:11:14: Or will the significant non-USD public money flows keep pushing us towards a more multipolar financial

00:11:20: world?

00:11:20: Hmm, redollarization versus multipolar.

00:11:23: That's a big geopolitical question, especially with all the capital flowing into regions like the GCC.

00:11:28: Definitely something to chew on.

00:11:30: If you enjoyed this episode, new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:11:33: Also check out our other editions on cloud insights, sustainability and green ICT, digital products and services, health tech.

00:11:39: defense tech, ICT and tech insights, and artificial intelligence.

00:11:44: Thank you for joining us for this deep dive into GITEC's global twenty twenty five.

00:11:48: Be sure to subscribe to stay informed.