New Arabic data governance platform to ‘elevate local talent,' says Governata co-founder
Governata enables companies to coordinate with the Kingdom's National Data Management Office, or NDMO, and Saudi Data and AI Authority, or SDAIA, guidelines.
All data remains hosted domestically to ensure compliance and cost control.
Governata co-founder, Djamel Mohand, spoke to Arab News about the company's localization strategy.
Mohand emphasized three advantages for Saudi businesses.
First, on talent development: 'They can leverage local talents better,' he said, through locally built software that used government initiatives such as MISK and SDAIA. This enabled 'thousands of homegrown data engineers, data specialists and other experts to be involved in improvement of these technologies, not only distribute global tech.'
Second, on organizational adoption: 'The localization aspect enables businesses to use this technology across the whole organization,' which Mohand said required a high level of cultural understanding to engage multiple business owners for full impact.
Third, addressing data sovereignty, Mohand said the 'local closed-loop setup protects standard solutions, as hosting the data on-premises or in the local cloud has become the norm. However, this is not enough if local businesses want to ensure full data protection.'
Mohand added that the Kingdom was leading in AI through big investments in GPU imports, local data centers and computing power capabilities.
However, he warned: 'A bottleneck to enablement will occur if data infrastructure and company management are not aligned.'
Governata claims to address this challenge. Mohand said: 'Our mission is to prepare Saudi organizations to leverage all this AI power being created by the country's leadership.
'As we elevate organizational maturity in data management, we elevate local talent,' he added.
Mohand said that the platform activated 'thousands of data scientists, software engineers, integration specialists, domain experts and business managers from Saudi Arabia's outstanding talent pool' while developing skills internally.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Arabiya
an hour ago
- Al Arabiya
Huawei debuts AI computing system to rival Nvidia's top product
China's Huawei Technologies showed off an AI computing system on Saturday that one industry expert has said rivals Nvidia's most advanced offering, as the Chinese technology giant seeks to capture market share in the country's growing artificial intelligence sector. The CloudMatrix 384 system made its first public debut at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), a three-day event in Shanghai where companies showcase their latest AI innovations, drawing a large crowd to the company's booth. The system has drawn close attention from the global AI community since Huawei first announced it in April. Industry analysts view it as a direct competitor to Nvidia's GB200 NVL72, the US chipmaker's most advanced system-level product currently available in the market. Dylan Patel, founder of semiconductor research group SemiAnalysis, said in an April article that Huawei now had AI system capabilities that could beat Nvidia. Huawei staff at its WAIC booth declined to comment when asked to introduce the CloudMatrix 384 system. A spokesperson for Huawei did not respond to questions. Huawei has become widely regarded as China's most promising domestic supplier of chips essential for AI development, even though the company faces US export restrictions. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told Bloomberg in May that Huawei had been 'moving quite fast' and named the CloudMatrix as an example. The CloudMatrix 384 incorporates 384 of Huawei's latest 910C chips and outperforms Nvidia's GB200 NVL72 on some metrics, which uses 72 B200 chips, according to SemiAnalysis. The performance stems from Huawei's system design capabilities, which compensate for weaker individual chip performance through the use of more chips and system-level innovations, SemiAnalysis said. Huawei says the system uses 'supernode' architecture that allows the chips to interconnect at super-high speeds and in June, Huawei Cloud CEO Zhang Pingan said the CloudMatrix 384 system was operational on Huawei's cloud platform.
Argaam
2 hours ago
- Argaam
Saudization for pharmacy professions in Saudi Arabia to start on July 27
The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development (HRSD), in partnership with the Ministry of Health, will begin enforcing the decision to raise Saudization rates for pharmacy-related professions on July 27. According to a HRSD statement, the decision includes 35% Saudization of community pharmacies and medical centers, 65% in hospitals, and 55% in other pharmacy-related activities. It will be enforced based on Ministerial Decision No. 103111 dated 26/01/2025, which approved the updated procedural guide for pharmacy professions, including the enforcement of Saudization rates and a minimum wage, in line with the definitions, job titles, and requirements specified in the guide. The decision aims to provide motivating and stable job opportunities for Saudis across the Kingdom, increase their participation in the labor market, and aligns with the Ministry's strategy to localize sectors and target activities and professions in line with the goals of Vision 2030. According to data available on Argaam, HRSD announced in January decisions to raise Saudization rates in 269 professions across various sectors, in collaboration with several supervisory bodies including the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Commerce, and the Ministry of Municipal, Rural Affairs, and Housing.
Arab News
7 hours ago
- Arab News
Saudi initiative Sound Futures seeks to bridge music industry gaps
DUBAI: Saudi Arabia's MDLBEAST Foundation is inviting regional entrepreneurs to take part in the 2025 edition of Sound Futures, an initiative designed to bridge the gap between music-related startups and investors. For the latest updates, follow us on Instagram @ The initiative aims to create local jobs, foster entrepreneurship, and accelerate the regional music economy by giving a stage to startups and entrepreneurs in the music and music-tech space to pitch their ideas to an audience of investors and industry experts during the XP Music Futures Conference, which will run from Dec. 4–6 in Riyadh. A post shared by MDLBEAST FOUNDATION (@ 'The music and creative industries in Saudi and the Middle East are evolving rapidly, but support systems for early-stage startups still lag behind at the moment … Sound Futures offers a timely platform for founders to gain access to mentorship, exposure, and possibly investment and funding to help bring their ideas to life or scale their businesses,' MDLBEAST's Bader Assery told Arab News. Applications are open to startups, budding entrepreneurs and even students from across the Middle East and North Africa region, with a focus on discovering the next big thing in music — innovations that could shape the future of music creation worldwide. 'One great example is Maqam Labs,' Assery explained. 'They started with an idea in year one and returned the following year with a working physical synthesizer that brings Middle Eastern scales (Maqamat) into the world of electronic music.' The initiative aims to 'champion early-stage music startups. Whether they're building tools for artists, fan engagement platforms, or music tech products,' with applications set to close by October. According to Assery, key challenges faced by music startups in the region include financial concerns, as well as a lack of access to potential industry partners. 'Access is the biggest hurdle we've seen so far. Access to capital, the right mentors, industry partners, and even data. Founders also talk about the difficulty of validating their ideas in a market that's still building its infrastructure,' he said, referencing issues Sound Futures seeks to address.
