SHERIDAN, WYOMING – Feb. 18, 2025 – As artificial intelligence continues to reshape the global economy, Huawei Cloud showcased its pivotal role in enabling Saudi Arabia's AI leadership journey at LEAP 2025 in Riyadh. The company emphasized how its advanced infrastructure and AI capabilities, particularly within its Riyadh Region, empower the Kingdom to develop locally relevant AI solutions tailored to unique regional needs while prioritizing data sovereignty.
Huawei Cloud's Riyadh Region: A Hub for AI Development
The Huawei Cloud Riyadh Region, launched in September 2023, has rapidly become a central hub for AI development in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa. Its sophisticated 3AZ (Availability Zone) architecture delivers industry-leading latency of 25 ms within Saudi Arabia and 100 ms across the broader region. Following its receipt of the prestigious Class C license from Saudi Arabia's Communications, Space & Technology Commission (CST) in 2023, Huawei Cloud further solidified its position by entering the Saudi government's National Framework Agreement (NFA V2.0) in December 2024, facilitating direct cloud service procurement by government entities.
Leadership in Delivering Cutting-Edge AI Capabilities
"As an pioneer in AI applications, Huawei Cloud is transforming how enterprises harness intelligence. Our Riyadh Region is the foundation for Saudi Arabia to develop locally relevant AI solutions that reflect its unique needs and values. The remarkable growth we've witnessed, serving over 1,000 customers across critical sectors, reinforces our leadership in delivering cutting-edge AI capabilities that are reshaping this dynamic market. The ability to process data locally while accessing world-class AI capabilities is today a strategic advantage for Saudi businesses in an increasingly global marketplace," said Alan Qi, President of Huawei Cloud Middle East and Central Asia.
Huawei Cloud Enables Intelligence Across Industries
At LEAP, Huawei demonstrated a comprehensive suite of technological innovations showcasing the convergence of AI and cloud computing. Huawei Cloud adheres to the philosophy of "AI for Industries" through its flagship Pangu model series. "Dedicated to providing each industry, enterprise, and individual with their own expert assistants, Pangu Models 5.0 represent a significant advancement with its '5+N+X' three-layer architecture. This complete hierarchical decoupling design enables quick adaptation to changing industry requirements, while its multi-modal and multi-size characteristics optimize the match between use cases and models, enhancing both efficiency and expertise for enterprises."
DataArts and Huawei Cloud Stack 8.5
Huawei Cloud DataArts, a one-stop intelligent data governance pipeline, includes distributed database GaussDB, cloud-native data lake service (MRS), fully managed serverless data lake insight service (DLI), all-scenario one-stop data warehouse service GaussDB(DWS), and data governance center service DataArts Studio built on Huawei's digital transformation experience.
The recently released Huawei Cloud Stack 8.5 further strengthens this architecture with more than 120 locally deployable cloud services. This enhanced version improves reliability and security while significantly advancing database and AI engineering capabilities. It includes 50 scenario-specific solutions across six industries, supporting initiatives from mainframe cloud migration to national cloud 2.0 and telecom cloud implementations.
Pioneering "Cloud for AI, AI for Cloud" Innovations
Huawei has built comprehensive cloud infrastructure and specialized solutions tailored to regional needs. This infrastructure supports the development of smart cities and enables the integration of AI across various sectors, from government services to private enterprise applications. The company's focus on Arabic language models and localized AI solutions demonstrates its commitment to making AI technology accessible and relevant to the Saudi market.
Huawei Cloud's AI approach is built on a dual innovation strategy. Cloud for AI leverages cloud architecture innovation to build powerful AI models and efficient data mining capabilities. Meanwhile, AI for Cloud combines these capabilities to enhance Huawei Cloud's own development processes across AI, media, and software pipelines, making these advances available as external services that accelerate enterprise development.
A Three-Layer Cloud Service Architecture
This strategy is realized through a comprehensive three-layer cloud service architecture. At its foundation, Infrastructure as a Service is delivered through KooVerse, a distributed global cloud infrastructure with a unified architecture spanning 96 availability zones across 33 geographic regions, serving customers in more than 170 countries and regions. The infrastructure supports flexible deployment across public, private, and edge clouds to meet diverse deployment needs.
The second layer, Technology as a Service, opens Huawei's accumulated technologies and tools to the broader community. Through AI development pipelines such as ModelArts, enterprises can accelerate their application modernization journey. The third layer is Expertise as a Service, where Huawei Cloud MacroVerse aPaaS opens up Huawei's years of innovation and digitalization experience as callable APIs, allowing developers to leverage accumulated expertise across government, finance, manufacturing, transportation, and meteorology sectors.
Investing in the Future of Saudi Arabia's Digital Economy
"Through our ambitious five-year plan of engaging 200,000 developers, building solutions with 1,000 local partners, and supporting 2,000 startups in Saudi Arabia, we're investing in the future of the region's digital economy. This aligns perfectly with Saudi Vision 2030 and demonstrates our dedication to fostering a robust digital ecosystem that maintains sovereignty while advancing AI capabilities," said Lawrence Liu, CEO of Huawei Cloud Saudi Arabia.
Transformative Impact Across Key Sectors
The transformative impact of Huawei Cloud's solutions is showcased through notable success stories across key sectors. StarzPlay, the region's second-largest streaming platform, leveraged Huawei Cloud's full-stack serverless architecture to seamlessly serve over 3.2 million paid users during the Cricket World Cup. In e-commerce, Zode achieved exceptional performance with a 25 ms local latency. Cashin, a pioneering fintech, improved response times by 35% and operational efficiency by 40% while reducing total ownership costs by 30%.
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