Tech News
Snap Inc. signs landmark MOU with Government Communications Office (GCO) at Web Summit Qatar 2025
Snap Inc. has signed a landmark Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Qatar’s Government Communications Office (GCO) to launch the first Augmented Reality (AR) Academy in the MENA region. Announced at Web Summit Qatar 2025, the agreement marks a significant step in unlocking creative potential across the region and driving digital innovation.
The partnership with GCO for the first AR Academy will unlock new opportunities and empower the next generation of AR creators and developers. This move also underscores Snap’s long-term commitment to investing in MENA’s digital ecosystem, by building AR capabilities for partners both old and new, which is critical to digital transformation agendas.
Sheikh Jassim bin Mansour bin Jabor Al Thani, Director of the GCO and Chairman of the Permanent Web Summit Organising Commitee, said: “Our partnership with Snap to launch the region’s first Augmented Reality Academy marks a strategic milestone in empowering digital talent and driving technological innovation. This initiative aligns with Qatar’s National Vision 2030 in building a knowledge-based economy and nurturing the next generation of creators by equipping them with the essential tools and skills to navigate global digital transformations. Through our investment in such pioneering programs, we continue to strengthen Qatar’s position as a regional centre for digital excellence and technological innovation.”
Hussein Freijeh, General Manager of Snap Inc. in the Middle East said: “We continue to bet on AR technology as we believe its potential is limitless. AR brings joy and utility to everyday life, enables brands to drive real business results, and empowers developers to push creative boundaries. The long-term success of the technology requires a vibrant developer and creator ecosystem, which is critical to the digital transformation taking place in the region. Once again we are honored to work hand in hand with GCO to drive the growth and digital upskilling of the thriving talent pool and we cannot wait to see the groundbreaking work they produce”.
AR has played a pivotal role in visual communication for more than a decade, pioneered by Snapchat and widely loved by online communities and brands all over the world for its ability to elevate creativity, connection and self-expression. From retail try-ons, and now Gen AI, Snapchat has evolved AR into a tool for human connection and spatial computing. Today, over 300 million people use AR on Snapchat and more than 85% of MENA daily users interact with Lenses every day. In Q4 2024 alone, more than 400 million Snapchatters engaged with Gen AI-powered Lenses over 4 billion times.
Developers and creators are central to the potential of this technology and Snap is committed to supporting this community through a variety of programs, opportunities and tools to help them build experiences and grow their creative potential. Currently, more than 375,000 AR creators, developers, and teams from nearly every country in the world have built over 4 million Lenses. Many of these are created using fifth generation Snap Spectacles, which have capabilities to better build and experiment with AR, allowing users to interact with the world and each other in entirely new ways.
The MOU punctuated an action-packed Web Summit, which saw Snap take a central role in showcasing the evolution of its AR technology and reinforcing the positive role the tech plays in fostering authentic connections across the GCC. Snap’s presence included live tech demonstrations, Snap Spectacles, expert-led discussions, and AR masterclasses, bringing the power of AR to life for attendees.
Tech News
Snowflake powers KSA’s Zahid Group’s data and AI transformation to unlock enterprise value
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.
Tech News
PNY Technologies Joins LEAP 2026 with the Latest AI Technologies – Riyadh, Saudi Arabia | 31 August to 3 September | Booth H3-D10
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
Tech News
Globant Introduces Glob.AI, Reinventing Technology Services for the AI Era
Globant (NYSE: GLOB), a global company focused on driving enterprise reinvention through AI, today introduces Glob.AI, a new AI-native tech services model that fundamentally changes how enterprises access, purchase and deploy AI services. Available online through a self-service model, Glob.AI gives organizations access to enterprise-grade, high quality AI Pods (service units run by a set of AI agents and supervised by humans). Companies are charged for what they produce -per output or per consumption- never per seat or per hour.

“For over 20 years, Globant has stayed ahead of every major technology shift, and AI is no different. Glob.AI is our next step: the one-stop shop where our AI Pods live, each specialized by task and industry. Traditional AI adoption drives token consumption far beyond what efficient output requires, and the real cost is the wasted tokens plus the unstructured, manual supervision of AI. AI Pods introduce a smarter model, running the right AI through parallel agents, loops, workflows, and deterministic processes, representing the true state of the art of what AI can deliver today,” said Martín Migoya, CEO and co-founder of Globant.
Glob.AI brings together AI-native velocity with Globant’s 23 years of enterprise delivery baked into the governance layer. AI agents do the heavy lifting, with Globant’s experts supervising their outputs and guiding every step. Glob.AI works to standards–documented, tested, secure, built for enterprise scale. It’s the speed AI promises, with the rigor and quality that businesses need, by including:
- Well-defined, deterministic, and repeatable processes, supervised end to end by experts
- Optimized AI usage and transparent pricing: customers pay strictly for expert-validated outputs and/or real consumption — not hours, seats, AI hallucinations, retries, or wasted cycles.
- At least 30% more productive than the typical engineer-plus-AI approach
- Full AI sovereignty and governance: total flexibility over which models customers use and where they run them, with zero client data ever used to train external models.
- Token consumption secured in a client’s proprietary Token Vault, providing full traceability and compounding a client’s institutional knowledge over time.
“AI is not just making the same projects faster, it is making thousands of projects viable that never were before,” said Guibert Englebienne, co-founder of Globant. “Until today, enterprises could not buy technology services this way: instantly, transparently, paying only for results. That is the shift Glob.AI delivers, and the strong demand for AI Pods shows enterprises are ready for it.”
Organizations joining the waiting list at Glob.AI will gain early access to a comprehensive catalog of agentic workflows capable of building and deploying solutions for enterprise platforms and specialized industry use cases. The AI Pods in the offering also include partnerships with major organizations including Anthropic, AWS, Vercel, OpenAI, Adobe, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, SAP and Salesforce.
Traditional enterprise tech services require months of discovery, RFPs, and procurement cycles before the work begins. Glob.AI changes that model entirely. Users can log in and immediately start building enterprise grade software. Tech delivery becomes a live, continuous service rather than a fixed-term project — every improvement and release happening on the platform, fully visible to the client, in real time.
Globant released AI Pods in mid-2025, and they are already in use by several Fortune 500 organizations across media, entertainment, professional services, and finance, delivering early results that include:
- FIFA experiencing a 20% efficiency increase in throughput generation while maintaining or improving quality rates
- LALIGA deploying AI across key functions in three months
- YPF reducing contract timelines by up to 40%
- PharmaMar achieving 15x faster insights in oncology research
- A leading commercial bank completing a COBOL migration in 2 months versus 14 as projected with a traditional approach
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