By Gaurav Mohan, SVP Sales – APAC, India, Middle East & Africa, NETSCOUT

The Middle East is building one of the world’s most advanced digital economies. Across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the wider Gulf, artificial intelligence is moving from experimentation into production. Sovereign cloud strategies are reshaping infrastructure. 5G is powering smart cities,, autonomous services and new digital business models. Yet as organisations accelerate innovation, many are struggling to maintain visibility across these digital infrastructures that gives them the knowledge they need to manage, control and protect their business.

Today’s digital services rarely operate within a single environment. Applications, workloads and services are spread across sovereign clouds, hyperscalers, regional data centres, telecommunications networks and edge environments, each generating its own telemetry, tools and operational workflows. As a result, organisations often gain more data but less understanding of how their services actually behave end to end.

According to Enterprise Management Associates’ Network Management Megatrends 2026 report, 51 percent of enterprises now manage four or more distinct network domains, 38 percent of organisations lack end-to-end visibility across their network domains and even 24 percent acknowledge having areas where their monitoring tools cannot see at all. This highlights a growing paradox that organisations are rich in data but poor in visibility.

That means decisions are made using incomplete information. Incident response slows down, operational risk increases, and it becomes even harder to protect the customer experience. In the Gulf, the challenge is particularly relevant. As data is increasingly localised to meet regulatory obligations, applications and workloads naturally cluster around where that data resides. While this strengthens governance and compliance, it can also fragment visibility if organisations lack a consistent view across multiple environments.

Often the most valuable operational and security information never travels between users and applications. It moves silently between cloud workloads, databases, APIs and servvices inside the infrastructure itself. If organisations cannot observe and understand these interactions, they miss the activity that often matters most.

The conversation is no longer simply about visibility. It is about whether organisations can trust the data used to make operational and AI-driven decisions. The question that must be answered is do they have the trusted operational data that is the authoriative network evidence that gives them the certainty they need to make better, smarter decisions – faster.

High-fidelity network data provides a more accurate and consistent view of network activity, helping teams fill the gaps left by logs, metrics and sampled telemetry. It enables organisations to move beyond assumptions and approximations, allowing teams to understand events as they occur and investigate them with confidence.

The most authoritative source of network intelligence comes directly from network packets, providing  an independent record of how applications, infrastructure and users actually interact. Rather than relying solely on sampled metrics or instrumented logs, it gives teams evidence grounded in observed network activity. The result is a clearer understanding of both operational and security events.

In the Middle East, where regulatory expectations continue to evolve and data sovereignty remains a priority, that level of accuracy carries particular importance. Organisations are increasingly expected to demonstrate resilience, accountability and operational transparency. Meeting those expectations becomes significantly harder when visibility is incomplete.

AI does not eliminate operational uncertaity. In fact, it magnifies and can force-multiply whatever uncertainty already exists. Feed AI incomplete or inconsistent data and it simply automates bad decisions faster. Feed it complete, contextual and trusted network intelligence, and AI becomes more accurate, responsive and reliable.

The Middle East has invested heavily in building world-class digital infrastructure. As AI, sovereign cloud and connected services continue to expand, organisations tha combine comprehensive visibility with trusted, high-fidelity network intelligence will be able to thrive. In the next phase of digital transformation, success will be defined not simply by how much infrastructure organizations build, but by how clearly they can see, understand and act across it with confidence.

Zahid Group, one of Saudi Arabia’s leading diversified business groups spanning heavy equipment, energy, transport and manufacturing, and others, has selected Snowflake, the AI Data Cloud company, as the strategic foundation for its enterprise data and AI transformation, giving the Group a scalable way to strengthen governance, advance AI adoption, and elevate customer experiences enterprise-wide. The relationship was formalized during a signing ceremony at Zahid Business Park in Jeddah, launching a multi-year investment that will strengthen productivity and support technology-led growth in line with Saudi Vision 2030.

With Snowflake, Zahid Group’s Digital Solutions Division is unifying data from across its business streams and departments on a governed, secure, centralized and scalable lakehouse platform. A modern business intelligence ecosystem will give leaders faster access to information, enabling them to spend less time reconciling reports and more time acting on insights. The next phase will use Snowflake Cortex AI to enable employees to engage with data through natural language, reducing reliance on traditional reporting and shortening the path from question to decision.

Snowflake’s adoption at Zahid Group comes as Saudi Arabia accelerates its goal of becoming the Middle East’s leading AI infrastructure and technology hub. The Council of Ministers has designated 2026 as the Year of AI, and PwC estimates that AI could contribute around 12.4% of the country’s GDP by 2030.

Before adopting Snowflake, Zahid Group’s data was dispersed across multiple systems, requiring extensive manual consolidation and resulting in reporting inconsistencies that slowed decision-making. As an early proof of value, the Caterpillar Helios initiative demonstrated the power of secure, real-time data sharing through Snowflake. Building on this foundation, Zahid Group is now extending Snowflake’s capabilities across its digital ecosystem, enabling real-time data streaming and integration with core platforms such as Infor and Salesforce.

This connected architecture has standardized critical reporting processes, reducing month-end reporting cycles from days to hours, and in many cases minutes. By eliminating manual effort and improving data consistency, it provides leaders with timely, trusted insights that support faster decision-making and strengthen a culture of data-driven innovation.

Suzan Sadek, Group IT Manager, Zahid Group, said: “Data is one of the most valuable assets of the digital economy. By choosing Snowflake, we are building a trusted and scalable data foundation that enables AI-driven innovation, faster decision-making, and improved customer experience. This transformation strengthens Zahid Group’s competitiveness, while supporting Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 ambition to create a data-driven economy.”

Michel Nader, General Manager for the Middle East, Turkey & Africa, Snowflake, said: “Zahid Group is demonstrating how trusted data can become the foundation for enterprise AI at scale. Snowflake brings information closer to customers while providing leading AI capabilities to enable digital transformation across Zahid’s operating environment. We are proud to support the company’s next phase too, where employees can access trusted insights faster and strengthen the Group’s ability to create lasting and scalable value across its businesses.”

Looking ahead, Zahid Group will expand Snowflake’s platform’s role across the Group, extending governed data products, advanced analytics and AI capabilities into more business functions to deliver measurable value for customers, partners and employees.

PNY Technologies announces its participation in LEAP 2026, taking place in Riyadh from 31 August to 3 September, where it will present its latest AI infrastructure and accelerated computing solutions.

The showcase will feature the technologies behind PNY’s AI infrastructure portfolio, from the AI Enterprise Factory to the latest NVIDIA RTX PRO and GeForce graphics solutions, together with networking and infrastructure technologies.

Visitors will also be able to explore the PNY AI Factory Digital Twin Configurator, which allows users to design and configure their own AI factory using digital twins and NVIDIA Omniverse.

PNY will also host live demonstrations developed in collaboration with its technology partners, including SOMOD, DDN, INFINIARC, VERTIV, and F5.

The company’s participation in LEAP 2026 reflects its continued commitment to supporting AI innovation across the Middle East and helping shape the technologies powering the region’s digital transformation.

The PNY team, including regional representatives, will be on-site throughout LEAP 2026 to meet with visitors, partners, and members of the media at Hall H3, Booth D10. Attendees wishing to arrange a briefing or interview are welcome to submit a request below.

Contact request: https://forms.pny.eu/pny-at-leap-2026/

Press contact: sverdier@pny.com / mhamdouche@pny.com