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RIYADH/SHENZHEN: Chinese technology giant Tencent is accelerating its cloud and AI push into ������Ƶ, positioning the Kingdom as its primary hub for the Middle East under Vision 2030.
On the sidelines of the Tencent Global Digital Ecosystem Summit 2025 in Shenzhen, senior executives told Arab News that the company is finalizing the launch of its first Middle East cloud region in Riyadh, part of a $150 million investment announced earlier this year.
Riyadh data region: a strategic hub
Dowson Tong, senior executive vice president of Tencent and CEO of the Cloud and Smart Industries Group, said the new Saudi data region marks a “major growth opportunity” for the company.
“We already serve many Chinese companies that are increasing their investments in the Kingdom, and several of our partners are lined up to benefit from the new center,” Tong told Arab News. “This will allow us to expand not only within ������Ƶ but across the region as a whole.”
He said Tencent is working to secure the necessary approvals and certifications to provide cloud services for both public and private sector clients in the Kingdom.
“We are pushing to accelerate this process because we want to move at full speed in serving the Saudi market,” Tong said. “������Ƶ is central to our strategy in the region, and we see cloud as a foundation for broader digital transformation.”
Vision 2030 alignment
Tencent’s expansion dovetails with ������Ƶ’s Vision 2030 goals to build a world-class digital economy, expand its data infrastructure, and attract global technology leaders.
According to Tong, Tencent’s Saudi investment goes beyond infrastructure. “Localization is key,” he said. “We are adapting our technologies to serve sectors such as digital media, e-commerce, gaming, tourism, telecommunications, and financial services. We are also building local teams and working with system integrators to ensure our solutions are fully aligned with Saudi business and regulatory environments.”
He also praised the Kingdom’s fast-growing gaming and esports ecosystem, underscored by the Esports World Cup in Riyadh earlier this year.
“This is one of the main reasons we are accelerating the establishment of our data center — to provide lower latency, faster response times, and an overall better user experience for players and streamers,” Tong said.
Industrial AI
Eric Li, director of AI Global Commercialization at Tencent, highlighted how the company’s AI solutions could be applied to Saudi industries.
“Right now, we are building server rooms in ������Ƶ. Once those are completed and ready for use, we will be fully equipped to serve local industries in ������Ƶ, the wider Middle East, and beyond,” Li told Arab News.
He noted that Tencent is tailoring products that could be implemented in ������Ƶ to meet demand in sectors prioritized under Vision 2030.
“For example, E-KYC could be adopted in finance and telecom operations, while Palm AI could be applied in cloud services as well as in the culture and tourism industry,” Li said.
He also revealed that Tencent will launch its new data center in ������Ƶ by the end of the year, which will strengthen service delivery and integration for enterprises in the Kingdom.
Supporting startups, new markets
Li said Tencent Cloud’s AI Agent Development Platform will be particularly valuable for Saudi startups and SMEs, many of which lack in-house AI development teams.
“With our ADP platform, local enterprises and startups in places like ������Ƶ can build and operate their own AI agents more easily,” he said. “It provides ‘brain support’ for generating ideas and implementing them on the ground.”
He added that such platforms could benefit not only large enterprises but also Saudi gaming startups and event-tech companies, helping them scale with advanced AI tools.
Tencent’s digital human technology, already deployed by Abu Dhabi’s tourism department, is another solution that could be replicated in ������Ƶ to enhance cultural tourism experiences in multiple languages, Li said.
KSA as the main gateway
Dan Hu, vice president of Tencent Cloud International for the Middle East and North Africa, said ������Ƶ will serve as the company’s “main gateway” into the region.
“The new cloud region represents a strategic pillar of our investments in the Kingdom, accelerating digital transformation and boosting smart city growth,” Hu said.
He cited advanced solutions such as edge computing and AI-powered analytics, which enable real-time applications in predictive maintenance, urban planning, and smart building management.
A milestone in Saudi’s digital journey
For Tencent, the Saudi launch is more than an infrastructure project; it is a chance to apply lessons from China’s AI and cloud commercialization to one of the world’s fastest-growing digital economies.
“������Ƶ is not just another market — it is a partner in building the future of intelligent industry,” Li said.
As the Kingdom pushes ahead with Vision 2030, Tencent’s investment signals growing confidence that Riyadh is on track to become a global hub for cloud and AI solutions.

RIYADH: The Saudi edition of Money20/20 Middle East this week offered a snapshot of how rapidly artificial intelligence is moving from hype to hard deployment in the Kingdom’s financial sector. 

With more than 450 fintech companies and over 1,050 global investors gathering under the theme “Where Money Does Business,” the event showed how central AI has become to ������Ƶ’s Vision 2030 ambitions and how urgent the conversation around regulation, infrastructure and talent has become.

The message across panels was clear: AI is no longer an experiment. It is increasingly embedded in every corner of finance, from fraud detection and onboarding to risk modeling and compliance. The more AI promises to accelerate growth, the more scrutiny it invites. 

For ������Ƶ, the challenge now is scaling adoption while maintaining trust, regulatory alignment and data integrity.

The Kingdom is projected to reap nearly $135.2 billion from AI by 2030, equivalent to about 12.4 percent of gross domestic product, according to PwC. That potential is driving urgency, with nearly all financial-sector leaders saying the pressure to deploy AI has grown over the past six months. Regulators are responding in parallel.

The Saudi Central Bank has expanded its sandbox programs and is introducing clearer guidelines to ensure innovation happens under strong consumer-protection and data-governance frameworks. Industry insiders at the event said this collaboration between regulators and the private sector is essential if the Kingdom is to balance speed with safety in AI rollouts.

Khalid Al-Sharif, CEO of Abdul Latif Jameel Finance, said the next stage of AI adoption in finance will depend on coordination between regulators, financial institutions and technology providers. 

“The next phase is about coordination,” he said. “Regulators must keep issuing workable standards, financial institutions must document and monitor models, and technology providers must build for local requirements rather than import generic systems.”

He added that enabling micro and small businesses is central to Vision 2030 and pointed to Abdul Latif Jameel Finance’s Bab Rizq Jameel Microfinance program, which has issued loans to nearly 300,000 beneficiaries since 2004 — 81 percent of them women. “Our goal is to empower entrepreneurs and women-led enterprises so they can contribute more strongly to national GDP,” he said.

Al-Sharif also emphasized the importance of building trust as technology advances. “������Ƶ’s financial sector is ready for this leap,” he said. “But success will depend on responsible innovation that protects consumers and uses data ethically while enabling growth.”

Among the announcements at the Money20/20 conference in Riyadh was Singapore-based Dyna.Ai’s decision to expand in the Kingdom with the launch of its Agentic AI Suite and Arabic-first AI Employees. 

These digital teammates, including an AI credit underwriter, knowledge partner and recruiter adviser, are designed to integrate into enterprise workflows and support compliance, customer service and operational efficiency.

“AI Employees are advanced digital teammates that augment human capabilities,” said Tomas Skoumal, chairman and co-founder of Dyna.Ai. “They deliver faster, more accurate, and personalized customer experiences while collaborating directly with human workers.”

The company says its tools deliver more than 95 percent accuracy with response times under 200 milliseconds. Importantly, the suite was built with Arabic capabilities from day one, meaning it can understand dialects, cultural nuances and regulatory requirements specific to the Kingdom.

While announcements like Dyna.Ai’s show confidence in the market, ������Ƶ’s journey toward AI at scale still faces hurdles. Executives at Money20/20 pointed to a shortage of AI specialists and data scientists even as universities and training programs accelerate talent development.

Infrastructure gaps also persist, with demand growing for high-performance computing, sovereign data centers and faster data-processing capabilities. 

Regulatory certainty is another area to watch. Though sandboxes and ethical frameworks are already in place, binding rules for algorithmic transparency, privacy and bias mitigation are still being developed. 

Industry experts warn that without clear, enforceable guidelines, trust in AI systems could be undermined before they are fully mainstream.

Money20/20 is more than a showcase. It is one of the few places where regulators, legacy banks, fintech startups and investors meet under one roof to compare strategies and align on priorities. 

This year, announcements such as Google Pay’s launch in the Kingdom, Alipay+ acceptance by 2026, and a series of capital markets reforms highlighted the pace at which ������Ƶ is trying to modernize its financial ecosystem.

For companies including Dyna.Ai, the event serves as a stress test, a chance to prove whether their solutions can meet Saudi-specific expectations for speed, accuracy, compliance and cultural fit. 

For regulators and policymakers, it is an opportunity to gauge market readiness and identify where rules and infrastructure must catch up with innovation.

������Ƶ’s AI story is now entering what many at the conference called its execution phase. 

The big-picture goals have been set: billions of dollars in AI-driven GDP impact, a skilled workforce of 20,000 specialists by 2030 and a digitally transformed financial system. What comes next is a test of implementation, how quickly these ambitions can translate into measurable outcomes.

Dyna.Ai’s Arabic-first approach offers one glimpse of what the future might look like: instant, personalized and compliant digital interactions that support growth while keeping human workers focused on higher-value tasks. But it is just one piece of a much larger transformation.

The Kingdom’s AI moment is no longer just a promise. Its success will be measured by the ability to build trust, close infrastructure gaps, nurture talent and ensure every algorithm deployed works for both the economy and the people it serves.