LEAP 2026 made one thing clear: Leaders across the Middle East are moving rapidly from AI ambition to AI execution.
During my days in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, I was among more than 200,000 attendees that included investors, policymakers and industry leaders from legacy technology companies to startups.
The Middle East has emerged as a global hub for AI and technology innovation. The region is not simply investing in AI infrastructure. It is increasingly shaping how sovereign AI, enterprise adoption, digital infrastructure and local capability come together at scale.
And AMD is in the middle of it all, working across the region to support that transition with a portfolio of CPUs, GPUs, adaptive and embedded computing, networking, and open software.
During LEAP 2026, AMD Chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su underscored the importance of the region to the future of AI when she joined Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology, His Excellency Abdullah bin Amer Alswaha, and HUMAIN CEO Tareq Amin on the main stage.
Customers, partners and policymakers are increasingly focused on the returns from AI investment: How do we translate infrastructure into measurable business value? How do enterprises move from pilots to productivity gains, efficiency, new revenue opportunities and competitive advantage? How do we develop local talent, protect data and enable sovereign AI while delivering meaningful economic and societal impact?
Across the Middle East, AMD is working with governments, technology leaders, enterprises and ecosystem partners to build the infrastructure, capabilities and open ecosystems needed to advance AI for the long term.
Moving from Infrastructure to Impact
In Saudi Arabia, AMD, Cisco and HUMAIN announced that production AI infrastructure powered by AMD Instinct™ MI355X GPUs, AMD EPYC™ CPUs and Cisco networking is live and serving customers. The companies also plan to deploy up to 250 megawatts of additional AI infrastructure beginning in 2027, with their joint venture remaining on track for up to 1 gigawatt by 2030.
AI leadership will ultimately be measured not by installed capacity alone, but by the innovation, productivity and economic value that capacity enables. For Saudi Arabia, this progress also supports the broader ambitions of Vision 2030 by pairing digital infrastructure with local capability, innovation and new opportunities for enterprises and developers.
The open developer ecosystem initiative announced by AMD, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and the Digital Cooperation Organization will provide access for developers, startups and software engineers to open software tools, training, technical expertise and responsible AI governance resources.
Infrastructure and human capability must advance together. The measure of AI leadership will not simply be how much compute a country installs. It will be what its people and businesses are able to build with it.
Turning AI Investment into Enterprise Business Value
Many business leaders I meet understand the potential of AI, but are still determining where to start, which workloads matter most and how to demonstrate measurable returns before scaling.
The HUMAIN AI Application Platform, or AI-in-a-Box, helps address those challenges by creating a more accessible entry point for Saudi enterprises. It combines AMD Instinct™ GPUs and AMD EPYC CPUs with HUMAIN capabilities so organizations can test workloads, deploy initial AI tools and broaden access without beginning with hyperscale infrastructure.
That creates a bridge between sovereign infrastructure at national scale and practical enterprise adoption. For many companies, the best AI strategy starts with a clearly defined business problem, a workload that can demonstrate value and an architecture that can grow with the organization.
The objective is simple: move from experimentation to measurable ROI and sustained business value.
A Broader Regional Transformation
That same progression is taking place beyond Saudi Arabia.
In the United Arab Emirates, AMD and e& UAE are collaborating across AI-ready cloud, telecom, enterprise and edge infrastructure, while our collaboration with Core42, a G42 company, is advancing AI, machine learning and confidential computing for cloud environments. And in Qatar, AMD and MEEZA are working together to accelerate AI adoption, including exploring AMD technologies in MEEZA data centers to support growing demand for accelerated computing and advanced AI models.
These partnerships reflect a broader regional shift. AI is moving from large-scale infrastructure into enterprise systems, telecom networks and the edge. Customers increasingly need flexibility to deploy compute where their workloads, data, economics and security requirements make the most sense.
Across different markets, the direction is consistent: AI investment is moving toward deployment, adoption and measurable impact.
Why AMD is Built for This Moment
Taken together, these initiatives span AI infrastructure at scale, sovereign capability, developer skills, enterprise adoption, cloud modernization, edge computing and secure public-sector AI.
No single product solves for all of these. And that is where AMD is uniquely positioned.
Our broad portfolio allows us to work with customers across national-scale AI infrastructure, enterprise data centers, telecom networks, edge systems and intelligent devices.
Just as important, we believe the future of AI should be open. Customers should have choice. Developers should have access to open tools. Governments should have flexibility and control. Partners should be able to bring their own innovation into the ecosystem.
What I saw at LEAP is one part of a larger transformation across the Middle East. The region is building not just AI infrastructure, but the capabilities, ecosystems and partnerships required to turn AI investment into lasting economic and business value.
AMD is committed for the long term. We will work alongside customers, partners and governments across the Middle East to turn AI ambition into practical innovation, measurable return on investment and sustained impact.
And we are just getting started.
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