AI and Cloud Ambitions Are Growing Faster Than Data Infrastructure

Across discussions with enterprise leaders, government organisations, and technology teams, a common challenge emerged.

Many organisations at LEAP 2026 shared ambitious AI roadmaps. They have access to cloud infrastructure and increasingly sophisticated AI tools. However, a common challenge remains: getting the right data to the right place at the right time. As AI workloads expand, organisations must move and prepare massive datasets across clouds, data centres, edge locations, and AI infrastructure. For many, data movement has become the primary bottleneck to AI adoption.

Another recurring theme was the rise of multicloud strategies. Rather than standardising on a single cloud provider, organisations are selecting services across multiple clouds based on performance, cost, data sovereignty requirements, and AI capabilities. As a result, data is increasingly distributed across cloud environments, data centres, and edge locations, making fast and efficient data mobility a critical operational requirement.

At scale, moving large datasets remains a significant hurdle. Transferring terabytes or petabytes of data using traditional approaches can take weeks or even months, delaying AI initiatives, cloud migrations, analytics projects, and other business-critical workloads.

Organisations also highlighted the growing complexity of distributed operations. As businesses expand into new regions, remote locations increasingly rely on on-demand satellite connectivity to support operations. While satellite networks extend access to previously underserved locations, they also create new challenges for moving large volumes of data across constrained and often expensive network links.

Underlying all of these discussions was a common business objective: reducing connectivity costs while supporting growth. Many organisations are looking for ways to maximise the value of existing network investments and avoid purchasing additional bandwidth simply to accommodate cloud adoption, AI workloads, or distributed operations.

The conclusion was clear: whether supporting AI, enabling multicloud strategies, connecting remote sites, or accelerating cloud migration, organisations need faster, more efficient ways to move data wherever it is needed. The need for speed in data movement has become a strategic business requirement.

This challenge is particularly relevant in Saudi Arabia, where investment in artificial intelligence, cloud services, and digital transformation continues to accelerate as part of the Kingdom’s broader technology vision. The scale and focus of LEAP itself reflected this momentum, bringing together hundreds of thousands of attendees, technology leaders, investors, and innovators to explore the future of AI and digital infrastructure.

Â鶹ѧÉú¾«Æ·°æ and Oracle: Helping Customers Move at the Speed of AI

At LEAP, Â鶹ѧÉú¾«Æ·°æ and Oracle demonstrated how Â鶹ѧÉú¾«Æ·°æ Data Express addresses this challenge.

Built on , Data Express is designed to accelerate the movement of massive datasets across cloud environments and geographic regions. It enables organisations to move data up to 10x faster than traditional approaches while simplifying deployment and reducing operational complexity.

Visitors were particularly interested in several key capabilities:

• High-speed movement of petabyte-scale datasets
• Rapid cloud migration and consolidation projects
• Simplified SaaS-based deployment
• Improved visibility, governance, and control over data transfers
• Reduced costs associated with extended migration timelines and cloud egress

Many attendees recognised that as AI initiatives scale, data movement is becoming a strategic capability rather than simply an infrastructure task. Data Express helps organisations accelerate cloud adoption and AI initiatives by enabling the fast, secure movement of large datasets across cloud environments. By eliminating data transfer bottlenecks, organisations can reduce project risk, control costs, and quickly realise value from their cloud and AI investments.

Strong Interest from Saudi Organisations

One of the most encouraging outcomes from LEAP was the quality of customer discussions.

Organisations across both the public and private sectors shared a common objective: accelerate digital transformation while maintaining security, governance, and operational efficiency.Whether supporting AI initiatives, cloud modernisation, business expansion, or data resilience programmes, many teams face the same challenge. The ability to move large volumes of data quickly and securely is increasingly critical to business outcomes.

The strong interest we saw at LEAP reinforces our belief that the market is ready for a new approach to enterprise data movement, particularly as AI projects require larger datasets, more cloud flexibility, and faster execution.

The Power of Partnership with Oracle

LEAP also highlighted the value of collaboration between Â鶹ѧÉú¾«Æ·°æ and Oracle.

By combining Oracle’s cloud platform and AI ecosystem with Â鶹ѧÉú¾«Æ·°æ’s expertise in data movement and acceleration, we are helping customers reduce complexity and accelerate time to value from their AI investments. LEAP provided an excellent opportunity not only to demonstrate technology but also to engage directly with customers about their transformation goals and the practical challenges they face in achieving them.

We would like to thank Oracle for partnering with us at LEAP and the many customers, partners, and technology leaders who visited the stand throughout the event.

Looking Ahead

The conversations at LEAP confirmed a clear market reality: the need for speed is no longer limited to applications, networks, or AI models. It now extends directly to data movement.

Whether organisations are migrating to the cloud, adopting multicloud architectures, supporting remote operations through satellite connectivity, or scaling AI initiatives, success increasingly depends on how quickly and efficiently data can move between locations, clouds, and users.

Across nearly every customer discussion, the underlying challenge was the same. Data is growing faster than the infrastructure and processes used to move it. The organisations that can eliminate these bottlenecks will be better positioned to accelerate AI adoption, reduce operational costs, and respond more quickly to new business opportunities.

For Â鶹ѧÉú¾«Æ·°æ and Oracle, this reinforces a simple but important principle: AI success starts with data mobility.

As organisations across Saudi Arabia and the broader Middle East continue to invest in digital transformation, cloud modernisation, and AI, we remain focused on helping customers move data at the speed their business demands.

Learn more about Â鶹ѧÉú¾«Æ·°æ Data Express and discover how it can accelerate your AI and cloud transformation initiatives. Contact us to start your today.

Engaging in meaningful discussions about Â鶹ѧÉú¾«Æ·°æ’s role in Africa’s emerging tech landscape with attendees from South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, and other parts of the continent, we identified three key takeaways from this extraordinary event.

1. Satellite connectivity is key

Africa’s technology infrastructure is rapidly developing, yet it has some way to go to match the speed and standards common in the Western world. As operating from cities isn’t always possible, realistic, or necessary, many African companies, particularly those in remote or rural areas, rely heavily on satellite connectivity.

But even large organizations with urban locations depend on the technology. For example, one major bank we spoke to has sites in Rabat, Casablanca, and Marrakech with an MPLS link, and still uses satellite connectivity for their remote branches to transfer data. After all, it’s secure and functional. However, it can be made stronger, faster, more reliable, and more cost-effective by adding Â鶹ѧÉú¾«Æ·°æ’s Application Acceleration solutions.

Latency can be high when data is transferred on a satellite connection across distant locations. It can rise even further as the amount of data and connected devices businesses deal with increases. Organizations often boost bandwidth to try and remedy these issues, at high financial cost. Still, it’s a myth that more bandwidth guarantees higher throughput; in reality, latency hampers maximum throughput, making bandwidth irrelevant.

Another way companies try to overcome their latency issues is by installing tools designed for this purpose. These can be unpredictable, slow and costly, leading to data becoming stale in transit and arriving later than it’s needed.

Enter Â鶹ѧÉú¾«Æ·°æ’s Application Acceleration portfolio, which empowers companies to quickly and efficiently distribute data across satellite connections. It’s scalable and flexible, and has been specifically made to help firms overcome network speed bumps like latency, congestion, and sub-optimal last-mile conditions. All securely, with market-leading encryption for complete peace of mind.

With Acceleration, businesses can make double-digit improvements in data transfer speed. Unsurprisingly, many GITEX Africa attendees were interested in employing the platform primarily for this purpose.

2. The cloud hasn’t arrived… yet

At global events, cloud technology is often a hot topic, but this was not the case at GITEX Africa, as it hasn’t reached much of the continent yet. However, with rapid technological advancements across Africa, the cloud is expected to arrive soon, and businesses must be ready to seize this opportunity. Â鶹ѧÉú¾«Æ·°æ can support companies with local optimization and is prepared to help migrate data and streamline traffic to, from, and within the cloud or any network, on- or off-premises.

Several attendees were keen on future-proofing their operations, recognizing that the cloud is a significant development likely to emerge soon.

3. Remote connectivity must be considered

One topic that did prove a common conversation starter was the use case of data center disaster recovery (DCDR). Organizations in Africa are consistently looking to improve latency and connectivity through their disaster recovery and backup. This is critical when you have data replicating between the data center and the disaster recovery site, with remote workers connecting to data centers through laptops.

At Â鶹ѧÉú¾«Æ·°æ, we offer two-step support in this area. First, we address data replication and flow between the company’s sites. Second, we install client accelerators on agents’ laptops, speeding up and securing systems no matter which network they’re connected to.

In conclusion, big things are happening in the African market. Connectivity, the cloud, and remote working were all discussed in initial conversations, and we look forward to talking to visitors more in the coming weeks and months about their goals in these areas.