Microsoft and Databricks Expand Azure Databricks Access in Saudi Arabia
Microsoft and Databricks have expanded their strategic partnership to make Azure Databricks more accessible to organizations across Saudi Arabia. This move supports the Kingdom's digital transformation goals and aligns with Saudi Vision 2030.
The collaboration combines Databricks' advanced data and AI tools with the secure and scalable infrastructure of Microsoft Azure. As a result, Saudi businesses will be able to enhance operations, develop data-driven solutions, and gain deeper insights from their data.
This expansion is designed to accelerate the adoption of AI and big data analytics. It also reflects both companies' commitment to supporting local innovation and building a strong data culture in the Kingdom.
Turki Badhris, President of Microsoft Arabia, stated that strengthening partnerships like this one helps Saudi organizations innovate and grow. He added that it also supports long-term national goals related to AI and data.
Mohammad Alzaubi, General Manager for Databricks in Saudi Arabia, said the partnership will help local organizations unlock the full value of their data. He emphasized the importance of access to Azure Databricks for driving AI initiatives and gaining a competitive advantage.
Some organizations are already seeing results. Cenomi Group, the largest retail and mall operator in the country, is using Azure Databricks to power its Data Lakehouse Architecture. This allows the company to analyze large volumes of data in real-time and improve customer experiences.
According to Binoo Joseph, Chief Digital Officer at Cenomi Centers, the integration of Azure Databricks has transformed their approach to data. It enables personalized promotions, better service delivery, and smarter decision-making across their malls.
Looking ahead, Microsoft and Databricks plan to introduce more training and certification programs. These initiatives will upskill local talent in data engineering and AI. They also aim to expand Azure Databricks integration through Microsoft's Enterprise Skills Initiative.
By improving access to Azure Databricks, the partnership is helping Saudi Arabia move toward a stronger digital economy. It supports innovation, boosts local capabilities, and contributes to the Kingdom's vision of becoming a global tech hub.
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Middle East Eye
27 minutes ago
- Middle East Eye
For Palestinians, to exist is to resist Israel's war of annihilation
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The following year, at the 27 September 2024 General Assembly, Netanyahu doubled down on his earlier claims, further amplifying his division of the world: "As Israel defends itself against Iran in this seven-front war, the lines separating the 'blessing' and the 'curse' could not be more clear." By then, at least 41,000 Palestinians had already been killed in Gaza by Israeli air, naval, artillery and ground attacks. This against a people - needless to say, but still needing to be said - with no air force, air defences, navy, or mechanised units, not to mention bomb shelters or, most of the time, electricity. What is finally becoming clear to more and more people is that, as far as Israel is concerned, Palestinian resistance begins with simply existing. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters This resistance through "being" then extends to all other human activities: breathing, sleeping, eating, walking, farming, giving birth, and on, ad infinitum, to everything a person might do in life. Thus, every Palestinian, by virtue of their very existence, is considered a "legitimate" target. Carceral geography Since the inception of Zionism, colonisation in Palestine has exerted every possible effort to erase, usurp and fragment the land and its indigenous people into ever-smaller and less contiguous areas and communities. We have now reached a point where, in addition to the wholesale destruction in Gaza, there are towns and cities in the occupied territories where Palestinian residents must pass through checkpoints simply to exit their own homes. 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Narrowing the frame The propaganda of so-called liberal democracies narrows the horizons of thought, severely limiting our ability to make sense of what is actually happening. When the official 9/11 Commission recommended the need to "bureaucratise imagination", it was not forecasting some future Orwellian dystopia, but describing the world we were already living in. With all the terminology used in discussing Israel and Palestine - genocide, apartheid, settler colonialism, anti-Zionism, and more - the key missing words remain "imperialism" and "national liberation". Trump's Middle East moves revive the question of who's in charge Read More » We cannot, for instance, even speak about Palestinian armed resistance - their political or military strategies, successes or failures - without first making a disclaimer of some kind. Under the standards his administration has set for ordinary civilians, it would seem that President Donald Trump's own team should be charged with consorting with "terrorists", as they negotiated the release of dual US-Israeli citizen and soldier Edan Alexander. The absurdities abound and multiply, as does the impunity: mere hours after Alexander's release, the Israelis assassinated journalist Hassan Eslaih, reducing to rubble the hospital where he was being treated after a previous assassination attempt. They went on to execute 12-year-old Mohammed Bardawil, the sole surviving witness to the actions of Major Nikolai Ashurov and Israeli tanks during the execution of UN field security supervisor Kamal Shatout, during the massacre of 15 Palestinian paramedics and other civilians on 23 March 2025. 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How many more generations will be enslaved to guard the imperial front of US interests, upholding a totalitarian, colonial ideology that dominates nearly every aspect of their lives - and every aspect of Palestinian life? Once there was "denazification"; then came "de-Baathification". Did they work? What about "de-Zionisation"? Could it work? Could we even imagine a democratic Palestine, from the river to the sea? Is this genocide yet another attempt to forestall that inevitability - by etching irreversible traumas into bodies and minds? From Balfour to the present As we travel down the road of Sykes-Picot 2.0 - with Syria's newly installed regime negotiating with Israel, and Lebanon on the path to becoming a protectorate - we are witnessing the culmination of processes set in motion by the 1917 Balfour Declaration. 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