Tech News
POLYNOME AI ACADEMY AND ABU DHABI SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT EXPAND CAIO PROGRAM, TAP GLOBAL TECH LEADERS

Polynome AI Academy and ADSM have unveiled the expanded global list of instructors for the second cohort of their Executive Program for Chief AI Officer (CAIO), featuring leaders from NVIDIA, Mubadala, BCG, G42, AI71, and leading research institutions.
The intensive program, running April 10–21, in Abu Dhabi, was created in response to a growing need among governments and large enterprises for structured AI leadership. It aims to equip Chief AI Officers and senior executives with the governance frameworks, operating models, and decision-making structures required to lead AI at both organizational and national scale.
“The first cohort confirmed what we’ve long believed: the CAIO role requires a dedicated program built for the realities of leading AI at scale,” said Alexander Khanin, Founder of Polynome Group. “Executives came to Abu Dhabi and left with actionable strategies they are already putting into practice. The tools are ready, and by 2027, AI is expected to guide half of all business decisions. The focus now is on equipping organizations with the framework to confidently execute AI-driven decisions. Cohort 2 builds on this momentum with a refined curriculum and fresh global perspectives.”
“The first cohort demonstrated the demand we anticipated; top executives across the region recognize that AI strategy cannot simply be delegated,” commented Dr. Tayeb Kamali, Chairman of Abu Dhabi School of Management. “The program continues to evolve, providing an immersive experience that equips leaders with the skills and insights to navigate AI adoption successfully and translate technological potential into real business impact.”
Inaugural Cohort: Impact & Insights
The first Executive Program for Chief AI Officer, held in November 2025 at Abu Dhabi School of Management, enrolled 35 C-suite executives and senior technology leaders. Participants completed 10 modules covering AI strategy, sovereign AI infrastructure, governance frameworks, agentic systems, Arabic NLP, AI investment strategy, and enterprise deployment methodology — combined with site visits to the UAE Cybersecurity Council, Core42’s Khazna Data Centers, and ADNOC, as well as executive roundtables with policymakers.
“The Executive Chief AI Program is unlike any course I’ve attended,” said Dr. Noura AlDhaheri, Chairman, DNA Investments. “It brings us directly to the AI creators, experts, and leaders, giving insight into the real challenges and the evolving landscape of AI. One of the most important lessons is that this field is constantly changing, so we must continually reinforce our knowledge and update our teams. AI is set to transform the way we do business; it’s a truly historic moment, and staying ahead is essential.”
The Global AI Experts Driving Cohort 02
The confirmed instructors list for Cohort 02 brings together leading voices from across the global AI ecosystem, spanning sovereign investment, national-scale AI architecture, enterprise strategy, and frontier research. Among confirmed instructors are Dr. George Tilesch, Founder & President of PHI Institute for Augmented Intelligence; Dr. Andrew Jackson, Group Chief AI Officer at G42; Prof. Merouane Debbah, Professor & 6G Lab Director at Khalifa University; Prof. Nizar Habash, Professor at New York University Abu Dhabi; Dr. John Ashley, Chief Architect at AI Nations and Director of NVIDIA AI Technology Centers; Charbel Aoun, Smart City & Spaces Director – EMEA at NVIDIA; Jean-Christophe Bernardini, Partner & Managing Director at Boston Consulting Group (BCG); Faris Al Mazrui, Head of Technology at Mubadala Investment Company; Chiara Marcati, Chief AI Advisory and Business Officer at AI71; Jorge Colotto, Founder and CEO of AIdeology.ai. Additional instructors will be announced in the coming weeks; and Marco Tempest, Director of Innovation Hub at ETH Zürich.
Program Structure
The Executive Program for Chief AI Officer is a 10-day intensive comprising 10 modules, executive seminars, case labs, operating model workshops, site visits to UAE AI institutions, including Core42’s Khazna data center, policymaker roundtables, and lifetime access to the CAIO alumni network. The program is designed for CAIOs, CTOs, CIOs, CISOs, public sector advisors, and senior digital transformation executives.
Tech News
Thermax showcases advanced desalination and water recovery technologies to strengthen UAE’s industrial water security at WETEX 2026
Thermax Limited showcased its advanced seawater desalination and industrial water recovery technologies at the Water, Energy, Technology and Environment Exhibition 2026 (WETEX), held from October 20 to 22 at Dubai World Trade Centre. Through its digital showcase, the company highlighted solutions designed to help industries secure reliable water supplies, improve resource efficiency and reduce environmental impact.
Thermax’s participation came as Dubai continues to strengthen its desalination infrastructure to meet growing water requirements. According to Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) Financial Annual Report, desalinated water production increased by 5.51 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, reaching a record 37.57 billion imperial gallons. By June 2026, Dubai’s installed desalination capacity had reached 555 million imperial gallons per day, with seawater reverse osmosis accounting for 23 per cent of the total. These developments highlight the growing importance of efficient and reliable water infrastructure in supporting the UAE’s evolving water requirements.
At the event, Thermax highlighted its desalination solutions that help industries meet their water needs while easing pressure on freshwater resources. The systems use energy-efficient membrane technology to remove salts from seawater and produce water suitable for industrial use, with designs tailored to each customer’s water quality and operating requirements.
Through its digital showcase, Thermax also highlighted portable and containerised desalination systems that bring key equipment together in compact units. This reduces installation work on site, supports faster deployment and allows treatment capacity to grow with demand.
Ashish Bhandari, Managing Director & CEO, Thermax Limited, said: “Water security shapes where industries invest and how competitively they operate. Businesses need dependable supply at a cost they can sustain. That means planning water and energy together, with investment decisions guided by performance throughout a plant’s life.”
Beyond desalination, Thermax also showcased Advanced Reverse Osmosis (RO) technology that recovers additional usable water from the concentrated stream left after treatment. By concentrating the remaining brine, the technology reduces the load on downstream evaporation systems and supports more efficient industrial wastewater management. When combined with suitable additional treatment and crystallisation processes, it can also support salt recovery, creating opportunities to recover valuable resources from wastewater and promote circular water management.
Thermax also showcased industrial water treatment, wastewater recycling and zero liquid discharge (ZLD) solutions that help industries treat and reuse wastewater for suitable applications while reducing freshwater dependence. Complementing these solutions, Thermax’s EDGE Live digital platform supports plant performance through real-time monitoring, AI-driven analytics and predictive diagnostics, helping industrial operators identify potential issues early, optimise maintenance and improve operational reliability.
These solutions align with the objectives of the UAE Water Security Strategy 2036, which targets 95 per cent reuse of treated water by 2036. Through its regional office in Dubai, Thermax is focused on exploring various opportunities across the UAE’s industrial desalination, water treatment and wastewater recycling sectors, particularly within water-intensive industries such as oil and gas, chemicals, metals, food and beverages, and pharmaceuticals.
Thermax has been active across the Middle East and North Africa region since 1993, with more than 1,000 installations across its regional energy and environment portfolio, serving over 30 industries.
Tech Features
TrendAI™Expands Vision One with New Security Capabilities for AI Agents and Application Development
TrendAI™, the global AI security leader and enterprise business unit of Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), has announced new capabilities for TrendAI Vision One™. These include the private preview of Autonomous Vulnerability Discovery and expanded support for Claude’s Compliance API, which now covers Claude Code and Cowork sessions. Together, these services help enterprises identify exploitable vulnerabilities in source code before attackers do, investigate how AI agents operate, and maintain oversight as AI adoption scales.
The need for this oversight is growing rapidly across the region. According to research conducted by The Harris Poll for Dataiku, 62% of UAE chief information officers believe their organisation have more than 50 AI agents running in production, yet only 18% have a fully unified view of agents across platforms, data environments, and business applications. At the same time, AI is accelerating both how quickly code is written and how quickly attackers can identify flaws. Security teams therefore need to keep pace with AI adoption without losing visibility into what is happening across their environments.
The new capabilities extend TrendAI Vision One™ across both software development and AI agent activity. TrendAI Vision One™ Autonomous Vulnerability Discovery is powered by AESIR, TrendAI’s agentic exploit-remediation engine, which identifies and validates vulnerabilities, including zero-days. It also verifies fixes in customer source code. The engine uses purpose-built, multi-model AI architecture that relies primarily on Anthropic models and has outperformed single-model and agentic system scores on the CyberGym Leaderboard. Every finding is validated by experts from the TrendAI™ Zero-Day Initiative™ (ZDI), the world’s largest vendor-agnostic bug bounty programme. The Autonomous Vulnerability Discovery is deployed and operated on Amazon Bedrock from Amazon Web Services (AWS), enabling the full workflow to run within the customer’s AWS environment
In parallel, the expanded Claude Compliance API integration brings Claude Code and Cowork session records from Claude Enterprise into TrendAI Vision One™. These records include prompts, responses, and tool calls, each tied to a verified user. It enables security teams to investigate AI activity in context, correlate it with endpoint, identity, cloud and network signals, and build custom detections for relevant agent behaviour.
Commenting on the announcement, Salah Suleiman, Managing Director, South Gulf, TrendAI™, said, “AI is changing both how software is built and how work gets done across the enterprise. Code is being written faster than ever, while AI agents are increasingly able to access systems, call tools and act on behalf of users. As organisations across the UAE and the wider region scale AI at pace, their security teams need to identify vulnerabilities early while maintaining clear visibility into what AI systems are doing and whether their actions align with organisational policies. With these additions to TrendAI Vision One™, we are helping organisations move faster with AI while maintaining the context, oversight and control needed to do so securely.”
TrendAI Vision One™ also continues to ingest activity logs from Claude Enterprise, covering user logins, administrative actions and configuration changes, as well as from Claude Platform, covering administrative, system and resource events. Autonomous Vulnerability Discovery is now available in private preview to select enterprise customers running on AWS, while Claude’s Compliance API integration in TrendAI Vision One™ is available to TrendAI Vision One™ customers using Claude Enterprise.
Tech News
ZWSOFT and Logicom Saudi Arabia Partner to Expand Access to Professional CAD Solutions in the Kingdom
The Strategic distribution partnership aims to accelerate digital transformation across Saudi Arabia’s architecture, engineering and construction sector
ZWSOFT, a global provider of engineering design software, has appointed Logicom Saudi Arabia as their distributor in the Kingdom, strengthening access to professional computer-aided design (CAD) solutions for local businesses.
The partnership combines ZWSOFT’s engineering software expertise with Logicom’s established distribution capabilities and local partner network to support Saudi Arabia’s architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector. The collaboration aims to help businesses improve productivity and modernise workflows through accessible, high-performance and cost-efficient design technologies.
At the heart of the offering is ZWCAD, ZWSOFT’s flagship CAD solution, featuring DWG compatibility, a familiar design environment and cost-efficient licensing. The partnership will help resellers, system integrators and end customers access these solutions and address evolving project requirements, supporting the Kingdom’s wider digital transformation ambitions under Vision 2030.

Naim AlHammami, Country Manager, ZWSOFT Saudi Arabia, said: “With the surging demand for advanced tech solutions in Saudi Arabia, ZWSOFT set out to find a proven, high-caliber distribution partner. Logicom Saudi Arabia is uniquely qualified to drive this expansion, backed by a strong product ecosystem and an established track record in enterprise hardware and software distribution.”
Fadi Karzon, General Manager of Logicom Saudi Arabia, said: “We are pleased to partner with ZWSOFT to bring innovative and cost-effective CAD solutions closer to businesses across Saudi Arabia. By combining ZWSOFT’s technology with Logicom’s local market expertise and strong partner ecosystem, we aim to empower our partners and customers with the tools they need to enhance productivity, drive innovation and support the Kingdom’s digital transformation goals.”
Through this partnership, ZWSOFT and Logicom aim to expand the availability of professional design software across Saudi Arabia and strengthen support for the country’s growing engineering and construction industries.
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