Tech News
The Future of Gaming in the MENA Region

By Mario Pérez, CEO MENATech (a company of GGTech Entertainment)
The MENA region is rapidly emerging as a powerhouse in the global gaming industry. Its gaming ecosystem is now the second fastest-growing worldwide, driven by an increase in the player base, investment from governments, and innovative trends like esports and game development. This region is not only shaping the future of gaming but positioning itself as a global hub for gaming innovation.
In recent years, gaming has undergone a radical transformation. Multiplayer games and increased interaction among players have made gaming a social activity rather than a solo pursuit. This evolution has democratized gaming, attracting millions of new players. Streaming platforms, virtual reality, and web3 are enhancing gaming experiences, making them more immersive and accessible. With all these innovations, the gaming industry is evolving rapidly, and MENA is at the forefront of this change.
MENA’s Gaming Market Growth
The MENA gaming industry is experiencing unprecedented growth, positioning itself as a key player in the global market, with the video games market projected to reach $2.9 billion in revenue in 2028. The region’s player base of 377 million rivals that of Europe and the US, making it one of the most dynamic regions for gaming growth.
Several factors contribute to this surge. First, the region’s young population—55% of which is under 30—is highly tech-savvy. The proliferation of mobile gaming and increased internet penetration has further accelerated growth. Countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE are leading this charge, boasting some of the highest engagement rates in the world. In fact, nine out of ten adults in the UAE are gamers, according to Statista’s Global Consumer Survey.
The region’s rapid growth and tax-free earnings have made it attractive for global gaming companies and investors, cementing its place as a crucial player in the global gaming landscape.
Government Support and Strategic Initiatives
Governments across the MENA region are fully backing the growth of the gaming and esports sectors. Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, for example, has a clear focus on developing the gaming industry as part of the nation’s broader economic diversification efforts. Its National Gaming and Esports Strategy aims to create 39,000 jobs by 2030 and contribute to the kingdom’s growing digital economy.
The UAE is equally committed to this vision, with initiatives like the ‘Abu Dhabi Gaming’ program, designed to foster talent and establish year-round gaming events. Dubai, through its Dubai Program for Gaming 2033 (DPG 2033), is introducing long-term residency visas for gaming professionals to nurture a vibrant gaming community. The city also aims to generate 30,000 jobs in the gaming sector by 2033, adding $1 billion to its GDP. DMCC Gaming Centre in Dubai, which houses around 100 gaming companies, also shows how governments are creating environments that encourage innovation and collaboration.
Esports: The MENA Region as a New Hub
In 2023, the global esports audience reached 540 million, with the MENA region playing a pivotal role in its growth. Saudi Arabia has become a major player in this space, hosting the Esports World Cup this year and preparing to host the Esports Olympics in 2025. These events are not just about competition; they represent an economic shift, driving tourism, creating jobs, and embedding esports into the cultural fabric of the region.
With 60% of global esports revenue coming from sponsorships, the MENA region is well-positioned to capitalize on this booming market. Professional leagues and international tournaments are gaining traction, and global brands like Coca-Cola, Toyota and Amazon are increasingly partnering with local esports teams and organizations, providing sponsorships that fuel the industry’s growth.
Local studios and developers are creating content that reflects the region’s culture and values, with publishers releasing Arabic language versions of their games to cater to the growing market.
Streaming has revolutionized how people consume games, offering opportunities for both participation and spectating. The rise of elite leagues and professional players has further driven the esports scene, making gaming a central part of entertainment in MENA. Full-time gaming careers are now a reality, with players earning through live streaming, tournament prizes, and merchandising.
Challenges and Opportunities Ahead
A cohesive governing structure is needed to align popular games and create a unified competitive landscape, like the MENA Tech’s annual UNIVERSITY Esports competition, which hosts multi-game tournaments for college students in the region.
Monetization remains a challenge, as esports is often viewed as a marketing tool rather than a profitable industry. Increased collaboration, regulation, and innovative revenue-sharing models are key to unlocking the region’s gaming potential. Technologies like NFTs, blockchain, and the Metaverse are infusing the arena with fresh monetisation prospects.
The future of gaming will largely hinge on technological advancements, with key trends leading the way. These include the rise of sports and fitness gamification, AI-driven transformations, and the resurgence of handheld gaming devices. Emerging technologies like augmented reality and virtual reality will also play a significant role, particularly with the development of extended reality, which blends the former two to blur the line between physical and virtual worlds.
MENA’s Path to Global Influence
With strong government support, rising player engagement, and a growing esports scene, the MENA region is well on its way to becoming a global leader in the gaming industry. As the region continues to invest in technology and infrastructure, its influence on the global gaming stage will only grow. The future of gaming in MENA looks incredibly promising, and its potential to shape the industry’s future is undeniable.
Tech News
Qlik Named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Augmented Data Quality Solutions

Qlik recently announced its recognition as a Leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Augmented Data Quality Solutions, marking its sixth time receiving this recognition. Qlik sees this recognition as a validation of its commitment to helping businesses ensure the data quality and governance needed to drive AI confidently at scale.
“With AI models increasingly commoditized, the true differentiator is data quality,” said Mike Capone, CEO, Qlik. “Companies that invest in governance and integrity will extract the most value. This recognition from Gartner validates what we see—AI success depends on trusted data.”
AI models require consistent, complete, and trusted data to generate accurate insights, yet many organizations struggle with gaps, inconsistencies, and unstructured inputs that undermine AI’s effectiveness. Poor data results in unreliable models, biased predictions, and heightened operational risk.
“Organizations need more than standalone data quality tools—they need a complete data strategy that ensures integrity at every stage,” said Drew Clarke, GM & EVP, Data Business Unit, Qlik. “Qlik Talend Cloud enables enterprises to embed trust into their data, analytics, and AI workflows, turning fragmented data into a reliable asset.”
By enabling proactive, governed data pipelines, Qlik ensures AI systems operate with high-trust data from the start, allowing businesses to scale AI with confidence.
AI is driving demand for next-generation data quality solutions that go beyond basic cleansing. With innovations like the Qlik Trust Score for AI, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) support, and automated data remediation, businesses can move from reactive fixes to continuous, AI-powered data optimization.
Key Capabilities of Qlik:
- Qlik Trust Score for AI: Assesses data readiness for AI applications, ensuring reliable and explainable outputs.
- Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Deployment: Ensures consistent quality across diverse environments.
- Unstructured Data Processing: Converts raw, unstructured content into actionable insights, ensuring seamless connectivity.
- Automated Remediation: Machine learning refines quality rules over time, reducing manual effort.
- Data Products: Ensuring that curated data assets are easily accessible to data consumers to accelerate their use-cases, including AI projects.
“Trusted data is critical to our operations, from regulatory reporting to daily decision-making,” said Tomohisa Nakajima, Senior Manager, ICT Strategy Department, at NEC Personal Computer Corporation. “As we explore AI, ensuring data quality and governance allows us to do so responsibly and with confidence. Qlik Talend Cloud will help us automate data quality, reduce inconsistencies, and build a foundation of trust that supports both our current needs and future AI initiatives.”
“We’re seeing an increasing demand from businesses that recognize AI’s potential but struggle with data reliability,” added Clarke. “Qlik’s ability to deliver converged data management—from ingestion to AI-powered insights—sets us apart and ensures organizations can scale AI initiatives with confidence.”
Tech News
With NVIDIA Cosmos Curator, Milestone announces a platform to enable access to data and train AI Models

Leveraging the NVIDIA platform, Milestone Systems’ Project Hafnia is aiming to be a leading service for data generators, to share and utilize their data, and for developers, to access traceable and regulatory-compliant annotated video data.
Milestone’s goal is to put the latest advances in Vision Language Models (VLM) and supporting data curation capabilities in the hands of as many developers as possible. One of the first service offerings is a VLM, fine-tuned using NVIDIA fine-tuning microservices on a large volume of compliant transportation data, curated using NVIDIA Cosmos Curator.
The VLM’s accuracy and performance optimizations are tuned for running on NVIDIA GPUs and in NVIDIA’s video search and summarization (VSS) AI blueprint.
“By leveraging the NVIDIA platform, Milestone Systems is helping accelerate this next wave of powerful visual services,” says Deepu Talla NVIDIA Vice President and General Manager — Embedded and Edge Computing. “The next phase in development and adoption of visually perceptive Agentic AI services will be unlocked by recipes like NVIDIA VSS blueprint combined with widely available and accessible fine-tuned VLM models,” he says.
Access to data
Milestone Systems is aggregating compliant data through its global network of partners and customers in video data management. These organizations seek to leverage their own data to develop smarter analytics and will be able to benefit from the platform, which can be utilized to train AI models on sufficient, compliant data.
“Artificial intelligence is our generation’s biggest game-changer. A major challenge for the ongoing development is having access to enough high-quality data for training AI models. The Project Hafnia platform will collect and curate data with the aspiration to be the world’s smartest, fastest and responsible platform for video data and training of AI models,” says Thomas Jensen, CEO of Milestone Systems.
Additionally, Project Hafnia will remove major friction points and provide smooth and seamless access to data. Driven by NVIDIA Cosmos Curator data curation, the service will speed up developing AI and analytics – up to 30 times faster than today’s standards.
Accuracy and speed
Milestone Systems will offer two services:
- A cutting-edge service for AI model training with high-quality video data through Training as a Service, where software developers can access quality data to train AI-models
- A new Visual Language Model as a Service for smart city transportation and Intelligent Traffic Service use-cases that will be industry leading in performance.
With new high-quality data and improved annotation, future analytic software for applications such as traffic management, manufacturing, airports, law enforcement, and business could achieve accuracy high enough to enable large-scale automation of operations and surveillance like never before.
Traffic Management VLM
By leveraging the NVIDIA platform, Milestone Systems has taken the first step in developing a market leading traffic and transportation Visual Language Model (VLM). The model supports a range of use cases, including general traffic assessments, driving condition evaluations, alert validation, and incident reporting.
Tech News
UiPath to Unveil Latest Agentic Automation Solutions at Agentic AI Summit

UiPath recently announced its annual UiPath Agentic AI Summit will take place online on March 25, offering attendees deeper insight into the latest UiPath agentic automation innovations and strategies for implementing agentic AI and automation to deliver consistent, reliable, and transformative business outcomes.
Agentic automation integrates AI agents, robots, and people to streamline operations, automate complex end-to-end business processes with multiple workflows and contextual decision-making, improve scalability, and unlock new levels of productivity. It enables AI software agents powered by machine learning, advanced AI, natural language processing, and computer vision to take autonomous action and deliver consistent, reliable, and transformative outcomes.
“Agentic automation is transforming businesses by integrating advanced process automation, business data and real-time intelligence to support scalable decision-making, and we’re seeing strong interest from customers eager to pilot this technology,” said Graham Sheldon, Chief Product Officer at UiPath. “UiPath agentic automation delivers value by driving efficiency, consistency, and scalability while empowering teams, enhancing user experiences, and ensuring strong governance. Simply put, the UiPath Platform is one of the best places to build, test, and deploy enterprise-grade agents.”
At the Summit, viewers will learn how to unlock and accelerate agentic automation initiatives with AI agents that are equipped with enterprise-grade tools and capabilities, orchestrated in complex, end-to-end workflows with robots and human-in-the-loop.
The Summit features experts from UiPath and customers such as WEX, State Street, and Adobe discussing a range of in-demand topics that can help automation professionals, business leaders, and knowledge workers understand the benefits of agentic automation. WEX, a provider of payment processing and information management services, will discuss how it is using the UiPath Platform to build, test, and deploy enterprise-grade agents to transform business processes, in part to enhance sales team preparation and document processing.
“Agentic automation enables us to make informed decisions and quickly adapt to business changes for rapid scaling. Its integration in call centers consolidates automations, streamlines processes, and empowers agents to use natural language,” said Emily Krohne, Enterprise Automation Principal at WEX. “This solution recognizes requests, triggers appropriate automations, and lightens the load on our workforce.”
Ashraf El Zarka, Vice President and Managing Director, Middle East and Africa at UiPath, said: “Businesses in the Middle East are moving beyond basic automation and actively investing in AI-driven solutions that solve real challenges. With AI expected to contribute $320 billion to the region’s economy by 2030, we see strong demand for technologies that simplify operations and deliver real value. Agentic Automation makes this possible by combining AI agents, robots, and people to improve decision-making and efficiency at scale. The Agentic AI Summit is a chance for businesses to see how they can use AI agents to work smarter, reduce complexity, and drive meaningful results.”
The summit will describe building trustworthy, governed enterprise agents within the UiPath Platform with specific sessions on Agentic Orchestration, Agentic Testing, and Agent Builder. The Agentic AI Summit will close with the session, “From inception to execution: The path to an orchestrated enterprise,” that will discuss the future of the orchestrated enterprise and will explore the latest AI research and agentic innovations that will profoundly transform organizations, empower the people who work in them, and change the nature of work itself.
Use case sessions will include:
- Industry deep-dive: putting agentic automation to work in banking, financial services, healthcare, and manufacturing
- Department deep-dive: how agentic automation is transforming finance, legal, and human resources
- Application testing deep-dive: transforming SAP and SAP S/4HANA migration testing with AI
- Process intelligence: leverage AI-powered insights for data-driven decisions on impactful transformation opportunities
UiPath Agentic Automation offerings
UiPath offers customers a single platform to understand and construct agentic solutions with a thorough understanding of key foundational components and the interplay between them. Its agentic offerings include:
- Agentic Orchestration: now in public preview, UiPath Agentic Orchestration serves as the nerve center to meticulously coordinate processes involving UiPath-built or third-party agents, robots, people and harmonizes all elements within an automation ecosystem. It functions as the conductor in the grand symphony of business processes, orchestrating the roles of robots, agents, and people in end-to-end implementations. The average large company operates over 175 enterprise applications, each with its own data, processes, and decision-making frameworks. Without a structured, orchestrated approach, AI agents become just another layer of complexity that leads to more inefficiency, siloed decisions, and operational risk. Agentic Orchestration makes it possible for enterprises to take control of their agentic processes by assigning tasks, managing interactions across systems, and maintaining governance over AI-powered decisions.
- Agent Builder: The company also recently announced UiPath Agent Builder, which offers a guided experience for building, testing, and launching ecosystem-agnostic, data-grounded AI agents. These agents handle complex workflows, provide autonomous decision-making, and integrate various enterprise tools and applications at scale. Agent Builder features include from-scratch agent creation, pre-built templates, testing tools, API deployment, and seamless workflow integration.
At the summit, UiPath will also announce the launch of UiPath Test Cloud, a revolutionary new approach to software testing that uses advanced AI to amplify tester productivity across the entire testing lifecycle to help customers achieve greater efficiency and cost savings. Through Test Cloud, agentic testing for software testing teams becomes a reality, equipping professionals with agents such as UiPath Autopilot and testing agents built with Agent Builder to act as collaborative partners throughout the entire testing lifecycle. By augmenting testers with AI, businesses can test more software, reduce costs, and improve accuracy to accelerate time-to-value and deliver high-quality software to customers.
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