Cloudera, the only data and AI platform trusted by organisations to bring AI to their data,  announced its participation at GITEX Global 2026, the Middle East’s premier technology showcase. 

As AI adoption accelerates across the Middle East, businesses must ensure their data is accessible, well governed, and secure to support AI advancements. Organizations who handle sensitive data carefully consider where AI workloads run and how data is managed across their public cloud, private cloud, and on-premises environments. 

The UAE’s focus on sovereign AI and a secure digital environment is driven by nationwide digital-first initiatives. The UAE’s cloud computing market is projected to reach $23 billion by 2032, due to numerous government mandates for sovereign cloud adoption across the public sector. 

Alongside these mandates, enterprises within the region are adopting similar sovereignty principles. Organizations are looking to transition their AI workloads from public clouds to private or on-premises environments. However, this migration exposes a critical infrastructure challenge as legacy systems often confine valuable information in isolated data silos. 

The impact of these silos is evident in Cloudera’s recent Data Readiness Index, which reveals that while 91% of IT leaders across EMEA express confidence in their data, only 26% report that it is fully governed. To dismantle these barriers and bridge the gap between AI and data readiness, Cloudera introduces Cloudera Anywhere Cloud, a modular hybrid platform engineered specifically for the agentic era. 

“Our participation at GITEX Global 2026 comes at a time when organisations are looking more closely at how they manage data and deploy AI,” said Ahmad Shakora, Group Vice President, Cloudera Middle East. “Our work with global technology providers and regional partners reflects the different requirements businesses face, from accessing AI models to managing data across hybrid and sovereign environments.” 

To further strengthen its regional ecosystem, Cloudera has forged strategic alliances, including Mistral AI, to assist Cloudera with delivering the hybrid data foundation essential for moving enterprise AI into more organisations. Supported by Cloudera’s Anywhere Cloud platform, this new offering by Cloudera helps equip organizations in the Middle East with a secure, localized platform needed to scale advanced AI securely and independently. 

Based on stand H15-E40, Hall No. S15, Cloudera will feature live demonstrations showing how enterprises can tackle persistent data governance and architectural challenges to allow organisations to utilise AI securely within their own organisations. 

Bahrain FinTech Bay (BFB), through its sister company Innovate for Bahrain (I4BH), today announced an exclusive partnership with Shaffra, the GCC-born Enterprise AI Workforce Platform, at Gateway Gulf 2026, the investment forum hosted by the Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB).

Through this partnership, I4BH will become Shaffra’s partner in the Kingdom of Bahrain, bringing the company’s enterprise-grade AI solutions to organizations across the public and private sectors. Shaffra’s AI employees have already helped enterprises and governments save more than 2 million work hours per month in 2025. The collaboration combines Shaffra’s proven AI technology and regional deployment experience with I4BH’s local expertise, relationships, and implementation capabilities. I4BH and Shaffra will also explore developing new solutions on Shaffra’s platform for priority sectors, with scope to collaborate on opportunities beyond Bahrain.

Bader Sater, Chief Executive Officer of Bahrain FinTech Bay, said: “We built Innovate for Bahrain to put frontier technology in the hands of Bahraini organizations, and this partnership does exactly that. Shaffra’s AI employees are already working inside enterprises and governments across the region. Through Innovate for Bahrain, every sector of our economy, from banks and government entities to growing businesses, can now deploy that capability with a Bahraini team alongside them from the first conversation to go-live. Gateway Gulf 2026 asks how global partnerships should be reimagined, and our answer is global technology with local delivery.”

Through the partnership, Bahraini organizations will be able to use AI employees that work in customer service, sales, human resources, finance, operations, and project management, each with a clear role and clear responsibilities. Ready-made solutions, such as AI Call Centers, AI Sales Centers, and AI Project Managers, fit straight into existing operations. Shaffra’s Subconscious AI technology helps these AI employees remember what matters as they work, and each one learns from the organization’s own policies and systems in both Arabic and English. Each organization deploys the AI on its own infrastructure, so its data stays under its control, while a governance layer sets roles, access, and audit controls.

Alharith Alatawi, Co-Founder and CEO of Shaffra, commented: “As a Bahraini, I am particularly proud to partner with Innovate for Bahrain to bring Shaffra’s AI Workforce Platform to the Kingdom. Across the GCC, we have already demonstrated how Autonomous AI Teams can transform business operations, deliver measurable efficiencies, and empower people to focus on higher-value work. Through this partnership, we aim to bring these capabilities to Bahraini enterprises and government institutions, accelerating the adoption of practical, impactful AI solutions. Bahrain has always been at the forefront of innovation in the region, and we are excited to contribute to its next chapter as a leader in enterprise AI.”

The partnership will enable AI adoption across key sectors of Bahrain’s economy, including financial services, government, telecommunications, healthcare, education, hospitality, retail, and logistics.

This also aligns with Bahrain Economic Vision 2030 and the Kingdom’s ambition to advance digital innovation, strengthen economic competitiveness, and develop a knowledge-based economy across the public and private sectors.

Shure has been named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide AI-Enabled Smart Conference Room Hardware for Hybrid Meetings 2026 Vendor Assessment. Building on more than 100 years of audio expertise, Shure helps organizations equip and manage modern meeting spaces while delivering the high-quality speech capture that AI-powered transcription, speaker attribution and meeting summaries rely on. 

“Shure’s position as a Leader in this IDC MarketScape reflects how far the company has expanded beyond its audio heritage,” said Gala Spasova, Senior Research Manager, IDC. “Shure has built a comprehensive workplace collaboration portfolio spanning audio, video, compute and cloud management, while maintaining a clear strength in the complex environments where consistent speech capture and intelligibility matter most are critical.” 

Shure brings audio, video, compute and ShureCloud device management together in a portfolio that works across the collaboration platforms organizations already use and trust. Shure solutions support Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet and Cisco Webex. 

Shure Recognized for Strengths 

The report cited the following strengths for Shure:  

• Shure solutions are well suited for challenging audio environments, including large, complex, and mission-critical deployments where consistent speech capture, scalable coverage, and intelligibility are critical to the meeting experience and downstream AI outcomes. 

• Real-time talker-positional data can trigger and enhance camera tracking in partner video systems, enabling organizations to improve speaker-focused video experiences while retaining flexibility across camera vendors. 

• Microsoft Teams and Zoom run directly on the IntelliMix Room Kits and Foundation System, which supply compute, audio processing, and touch panel together, and the Bar Pro runs Teams on the Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform, with Shure’s own person-detection and speech-enhancement models on the device 

“We believe Shure’s recognition as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape reflects the progress we’ve made in expanding our role in the hybrid workplace. Enterprise collaboration should be built as a platform, not a collection of individual meeting rooms,” said Sam Sabet, Executive VP and Chief Technology Officer at Shure. “At Shure, we’re building that platform with secure, manageable technology that can scale from an all-in-one collaboration bar to a multi-camera system in a large, complex room. Continuous innovation is part of that approach, with solutions designed to grow with our customers as their technology needs evolve. That gives IT a consistent foundation to scale while providing AI tools the high-quality inputs they need to do their job.”  

When Organizations Should Consider Shure 

According to the IDC MarketScape, organizations should consider Shure when: 

• You manage a large or complex estate with varied acoustic conditions, and audio quality is a decisive purchasing criterion. You want to maximize the value of meeting AI and recognize that transcription, speaker attribution, summarization, and AI-driven insights depend on the quality of the audio captured in the room. 

• You want system- and device-level life-cycle management and analytics from the conference room solution supplier, complementing the management capabilities available through your collaboration platform’s console. 

Support Across the Lifecycle 

“The investment doesn’t stop once the technology is installed,” Sabet added. “Customers need to know their systems will continue to perform and that the right support is there when they need it. With warranty coverage available for up to five years and a professional services team working alongside integrators, resellers and managed services providers, we support customers throughout the lifecycle of their collaboration environments.”