Middle East's diversification programmes driving digital transformation

Intel 's regional chief bullish about the semiconductor behemoth's fortunes in the region

PUBLISHED: Mon 14 Apr 2025, 12:00 PM

The 2030 vision across the Middle East is driving digital transformation like never before, a senior industry official said.

“It’s one of the most significant changes we’re seeing in the region, with efforts to diversify the economy, build digital infrastructure, and create digital transformation. What sets the Middle East apart is that, specifically in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, it is the government leading the transformation. In Europe and the US, it’s usually the enterprises that lead, and the government follows. But here, the government is setting aggressive targets, and we’re seeing the results of that with the 2030 visions that drive diversification and transformation away from oil towards a digital-first economy,” Taha Khalifa, General Manager, Middle East and North Africa, Intel Corporation, told Khaleej Times in an interview.

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The semiconductor behemoth has been seeking to turn its fortunes around with the recent appointment of Lip-Bu Tan as its global CEO. “With his background and experience in the semiconductor industry, as well as in the technology sector in general, and his deep relationships with customers across the board, he’s going to help Intel move forward and bring us closer to our customers. What we’ve gathered from his key communications is that he’s very focused on creating an engineering culture at Intel, which is core to our identity. Intel was always built as an engineering company, and we will continue to prioritize that,” Khalifa said.

One of the key things that Lip-Bu brings to the table is his semiconductor experience. He was on the Intel Board, and he was also the CEO of Cadence for quite some time, where he helped turn the company around. His ability to lead and turn companies around will be invaluable as he takes the helm at Intel. “With the support of our current product CEO, Michelle Johnson, and CFO, we are confident that this leadership team will be able to make the right decisions to advance our strategy and drive the company forward,” Khalidfa said.

In the region, Khalifa expects that the end of Windows support for older versions in October and the release of Windows 11 will likely accelerate the refresh cycle for PCs in the commercial space. “From an AI perspective, there have been significant investments in AI across the region, particularly in the UAE, with investments in data centers and AI infrastructure. PwC predicts that AI will contribute 14% of the UAE’s GDP by 2030, which amounts to almost $100 billion. In Saudi Arabia, it’s predicted to contribute 12% of the GDP, or around $135 billion. These figures put both the UAE and Saudi Arabia at the forefront of AI contribution to GDP globally,” Khalifa said.

For AI, Intel expects a shift from training to inference. “Right now, most AI compute is focused on training, with around 75% of workloads on training and 25% on inference. Over the next few years, we expect that ratio to flip in favour of inference. As large language models continue to develop, there will be a need for inference to run models from edge devices to the cloud and data centers. Additionally, AI workloads will require constant fine-tuning, making inference even more important,” Khalifa said.

Intel says its Xeon 6 processor, which was released this year, is an ideal platform for AI inference. “We’ve incorporated features that optimize AI workloads. What we advocate to our customers is the software-defined architecture approach, where the workload and requirements dictate the infrastructure and hardware needed. Our Xeon platform is built to excel at inference tasks, and we believe it’s a key enabler for AI advancements in the region,” Khalifa said.

Intel is also looking to add AI features to its flagship chips like the i7 and i9. “By 2028, we expect that 80% of PCs will be AI PCs. An AI PC includes the traditional PC plus what we call an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) to enable AI workloads. We’ve already introduced several generations of AI PCs, and by the end of this year, we expect to have 100 million AI PCs on the market. It’s not just about the hardware — it’s also about optimizing applications to take full advantage of NPUs, CPUs, and GPUs. We’ve already worked with over 100 software vendors to optimize their products on our platforms, with over 300 AI features enabled,” Khalifa said.

Locally, applications like Jays and Falcon in the UAE running on AI PCs powered by Intel, and models are also running in Saudi Arabia. “The advantage of running AI models on local PCs is that it ensures data privacy and security. This is a key area where Intel has AI leadership, and we’re excited about the potential for software developers to leverage these open standards for enhanced performance,” Khalifa said.