Huawei Cloud Enables Saudi Arabia’s Path to AI Leadership at LEAP 2025

Riyadh Region emerges as strategic hub for Middle East’s AI development, serving over 1,000 customers and 300 partners across government, finance, media, and e-commerce sectors

As artificial intelligence reshapes the global economy, Huawei Cloud today showcased how its Riyadh Region is enabling Saudi Arabia to chart its own path to AI leadership while maintaining data sovereignty. At LEAP 2025, the company highlighted how its sophisticated infrastructure and AI capabilities empower the Kingdom to build locally relevant AI solutions that address unique regional needs.

The Huawei Cloud Riyadh Region, launched in September 2023, has rapidly evolved into a pivotal hub for AI development in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa. Its sophisticated 3AZ (Availability Zone) architecture delivers industry-leading latency rates of 25ms within Saudi Arabia and 100ms across the broader region.

Following its receipt of the prestigious Class C license from Saudi Arabia’s Communications, Space, and Technology Commission (CST) in 2023, Huawei Cloud has strengthened its position by entering the Saudi government’s National Framework Agreement (NFA V2.0) in December 2024, enabling direct cloud service procurement by government entities.

Alan Qi, President of Huawei Cloud Middle East and Central Asia, said, “As a pioneer in AI industrial 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 have 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.”

Huawei Cloud Enables Intelligence Across Industries as AI Pioneer

At LEAP, Huawei demonstrated a comprehensive suite of technological innovations representing the convergence of AI and cloud computing. Huawei Cloud adheres to the concept of AI for industries through its flagship Pangu model series.

Dedicated to providing each industry, enterprise, and individual with their own expert assistants, Pangu Model 5.0 represents 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 scenarios and models, meeting enterprise demands for both economic efficiency and professional capability.

Visitors explored Huawei Cloud DataArts, a one-stop intelligent data governance production line. It includes distributed database GaussDB, cloud-native data lake service (MRS), fully managed serverless data lake exploration service (DLI), all-scenario one-stop data warehouse service GaussDB (DWS), and data governance center service DataArts Studio based on Huawei’s digital transformation experience.

The newly 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-based solutions across six industries, supporting initiatives from host cloudification to national cloud 2.0 and telecom cloud implementations.

Pioneering “Cloud for AI, AI for Cloud” Innovation

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 model capabilities 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 production lines, making these advances available as external services that accelerate enterprise development.

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 cloud infrastructure with a unified architecture spanning 96 availability zones across 33 geographic regions, serving customers in more than 170 countries. The infrastructure supports flexible deployment across public, private, and edge clouds to meet diverse application scenarios.

The second layer, Technology-as-a-Service, opens Huawei’s accumulated technologies and tools to the broader community. Through AI development production lines such as ModelArts, enterprises can accelerate their application modernization journey. The third layer, Experience-as-a-Service (aPaaS), provides ready-to-use industry solutions, allowing developers to leverage accumulated expertise across government, finance, manufacturing, transportation, and meteorology sectors.

Lawrence Liu, CEO of Huawei Cloud Saudi Arabia, said, “Through our ambitious five-year plan to develop 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.”

Transformative Impact Across Key Sectors

The transformative impact of Huawei Cloud’s solutions is demonstrated 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, Saudi Arabia’s Zode achieved exceptional performance with 25ms local latency.

Cashin, a pioneering fintech enterprise, improved response times by 35% and operational efficiency by 40% while reducing total ownership costs by 30%.