Over the past few years, Riyadh has seen a change that is no longer subtle. These days, a different type of visitor fills the lobbies of the large hotels close to King Fahd Road: venture capitalists, founders, and product leads from Singapore, London, and New York, all circling the same opportunity, in addition to energy executives. For a long time, Saudi Arabia has discussed diversifying beyond oil. The fact that the money is truly moving is what has changed. The most convincing evidence came in the middle of 2025 when Lucidya, a customer experience platform based on Arabic-native AI, closed…
In the same way that meteorologists monitor hurricane swells, a cabinet of forecasters in Boulder,…
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The King Abdulaziz International Conference Center in Riyadh doesn’t seem like the birthplace of international tech regulations. Footsteps are absorbed by the thick carpets. Besides the translation headsets are half-finished coffee cups. Attendees lean forward and pay close attention as presenters go over a topic that was previously thought to be solely Californian: the proper conduct of artificial intelligence. Silicon Valley is not the source of this conversation. In collaboration with the Islamic World Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority has started to develop an ethics charter that goes beyond governing AI in the…
When most UAE residents first heard the term “deepfake,” they thought it was a foreign issue that only affected Hollywood actresses or American politicians, not their neighbors or coworkers in Sharjah or Abu Dhabi. That distance has vanished. These days, if you walk into any cybersecurity briefing in Dubai, you’ll hear the same unsettling refrain: technology has progressed from novelty to annoyance to, increasingly, weapon. For months, the UAE Cybersecurity Council has been warning citizens to be suspicious of any unexpected video call or voicemail from a “boss” or “family member,” just as they used to be with emails from…
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