Why GCC Startups Thrive in AI Sector

Data obtained and examined by "Arabi Post" on the map of cloud service centers and areas (information centers) in the Middle East and North Africa revealed that the region's countries rely greatly on American companies for cloud services. The information reveals the existence of around 31 American centers, most of them in Gulf countries, while the variety of centers owned by Chinese companies reached about 7.

In the Gulf countries, more than 53% of the cloud facilities tracked there is American. Source: "Arabi Post" database of cloud service centers in the Middle East and North Africa (89 centers).

Within a few years, cloud service centers have actually shifted from a "technical option" for reducing server costs into critical facilities for the state and the economy: e-government websites, payment and banking systems, health and education platforms, and the operation of big data, artificial intelligence, and more. But the current Iran war (2026) revealed a brand-new measurement: the cloud itself can be directly and physically targeted, as taken place when Iranian drone strikes damaged Amazon AWS cloud service data centers in the UAE and Bahrain, causing disruptions and service interruptions.

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But the significance of American and foreign business does not stop at technical competition or service quality; it reaches digital sovereignty and questions of control over data for these nations and their different delicate sectors. American companies undergo U.S. laws regulating lawful access to data, such as the CLOUD Act, raising questions about the limitations of judicial ask for data even when it is saved outside the United States.

"CLOUD Act" (March 2018): Area 2713 clearly forces communications and calculating service companies to protect and reveal subscriber data within their "possession, custody, or control, regardless of whether it is situated within or outside the United States" verifying the point above., as provided by U.S

At the same time, professionals called by "Arabi Post" alert of the dangers of focusing contracts with American cloud service suppliers, and of the impact of "foreign jurisdiction" on personal privacy and security.

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people or homeowners who connect with individuals or companies in those nations where information centers operated by American companies store the data of those nations and their citizens. To understand the scope of this risk, it is needed to initially examine U.S. federal laws such as FISA Section 702 and the CLOUD Act, which governs U.S.

Although the CLOUD Act grants Washington broad authority to access information stored in data centersthe massive facilities utilized by business to shop and procedure informationin some cases, under the Act, U.S. authorities may be needed to notify the government of the nation concerned that there is a legal basis engaging access to that information.

The U.S. federal government could likewise punish or target any U.S. citizen who engages in monetary transactions with that nation or sends money transfers to people there. Abu Al-Saad also says that if a dispute were to take place in between that nation and Washington, the United States might suspend its information storage services for that country and validate doing so.

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This would impact all sectors, including monetary and banking services. In the context of the security threats connected to nations' reliance on American information centers, another point likewise emergesone that Ibtihal Abu Al-Saad thinks about the most crucial and most dangerous: the U.S. legal and intelligence tool known as "National Security Letters" (NSLs).

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federal intelligence and security agencies. Under these letters, U.S. authorities have the capability to oblige major innovation companies to hand over delicate information connected to residents or countries. Washington could, for instance, force Amazon to open information records belonging to users in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, or in other places, while "imposing a strict nondisclosure order that avoids the innovation business from informing the Bahraini government or the targeted individuals that this access has taken location.