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Google to Open Two New HQs in Saudi Arabia

Managing Director for Google in the Middle East & North Africa Anthony Nakache at a conference in Riyadh on Tuesday. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Managing Director for Google in the Middle East & North Africa Anthony Nakache at a conference in Riyadh on Tuesday. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Google to Open Two New HQs in Saudi Arabia

Managing Director for Google in the Middle East & North Africa Anthony Nakache at a conference in Riyadh on Tuesday. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Managing Director for Google in the Middle East & North Africa Anthony Nakache at a conference in Riyadh on Tuesday. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

American multinational technology company Google is preparing for launching two new headquarter offices in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The planned offices will open in the cities of Riyadh and al-Dammam. Google also is building a data partnership with Saudi oil giant, Aramco.

Google drove about SR12.2 billion ($3.25 billion) in economic activity in Saudi Arabia in 2021, with the Android Developer ecosystem supporting at least 29,000 jobs in the kingdom every year.

The search engine giant announced the figures in its latest impact report released on Tuesday. The report was based on public polling, economic modeling, and third-party data.

Besides, YouTube channels are making six figures or more in revenue are up by 20% year over year and the total number of developers making over SR37,500 ($10,000) per month or more on Play grew by 15%, said the Google Impact Report.

According to the report, 66% of people used Google Maps to find a local business and 52% of businesses reported an increase of customers coming from online search or search advertising in the last two years.

The paper also found that 67% of online businesses said that Google Workspace was essential in enabling remote working (Google workspace is a collection of cloud computing and collaboration tools like Google Drive, Gmail and Meet).

“It's great to see the positive impact Google products like Search, YouTube, Maps and Android have on the daily lives of Saudi people, local business owners, developers and content creators,” said Anthony Nakache, Managing Director for Google in the Middle East & North Africa.

“Saudi Arabia is young, smart and digital, and we're proud to be an engine of growth in the country and an enabler in its digital transformation journey,” he added.

“We're excited to see what great things people can do there given the right tools and skills and we are committed to doing more through programs and local partnerships,” he remarked.

“In the last couple of years, Covid-19 has helped accelerate some preexisting trends such as the rise of e-commerce, the shift towards remote working and the use of online tools to support lifelong learning,” said Jonathan Dupont, Partner at Public First.

“In our research, people and businesses across the Middle East told us how important Google’s tools and services had been in enabling them to adapt to these changes: helping small businesses start to sell online, supporting workers to collaborate better online and children to keep learning,” he added.

In October 2020, Google announced a $13 million fund to help one million people and businesses in the Middle East and North Africa learn advanced digital skills and grow their businesses by the end of 2021.

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Technology

AI Giants Promise Publishers New Way to Block Some Scraping

An OpenAI logo is displayed at Moscone Center during the Dreamforce 2026 technology summit in San Francisco, California, US, September 17, 2026. (Reuters)
An OpenAI logo is displayed at Moscone Center during the Dreamforce 2026 technology summit in San Francisco, California, US, September 17, 2026. (Reuters)
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AI Giants Promise Publishers New Way to Block Some Scraping

An OpenAI logo is displayed at Moscone Center during the Dreamforce 2026 technology summit in San Francisco, California, US, September 17, 2026. (Reuters)
An OpenAI logo is displayed at Moscone Center during the Dreamforce 2026 technology summit in San Francisco, California, US, September 17, 2026. (Reuters)

OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Anthropic pledged on Friday to give media outlets and other websites a single way to prevent their content from being scraped to train artificial intelligence (AI) models, amid growing criticisms and legal battles from news publishers.

Publishers currently have to implement multiple blocking commands for every bot that crawls the web to collect data, but the new proposed solution will allow them to enter a single, standardized instruction that's recognized and honored by any AI company that adopts the protocol.

The solution will not fully take effect for months, though.

Microsoft will implement it beginning February 1, 2027, and Google sometime in 2027. ChatGPT-maker OpenAI said it will roll it out "in the coming months," while Claude-maker Anthropic said it has "already started" rolling it out.

The announcement comes as publishers are facing a surge in bots that scrape their articles to feed AI models. Some, like the New York Times, have taken the matter to court.

In December 2023, the Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for allegedly using millions of its articles without authorization or payment to train ChatGPT. The two tech companies are invoking an exception to copyright law known as fair use.

Meanwhile, internet infrastructure provider Cloudflare has blocked AI bots by default on new customer sites since July 2025, and a standard called Really Simple Licensing already allows publishers to charge bots that visit their pages.

The new setting will apply only to future training of models but does not prevent bots from crawling otherwise, and content scraping will be allowed by default until the setting is changed by a publisher, Microsoft said in a blog post.

Opting out of AI training could reduce the chances that a publisher's content will surface in AI apps and experiences, Microsoft and Google said in separate blog posts.

"We believe creating a common signal that conveys such preferences to multiple providers at once is an important step. And we look forward to working with other AI companies on the standards and their implementation across the industry," Meta spokesperson Andy Stone wrote on X, conveying his support for the effort.

Technology

Meta, TikTok, X Lose Legal Challenge against UK Watchdog over Online Safety Data Demands

Meta logo (Reuters)
Meta logo (Reuters)
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Meta, TikTok, X Lose Legal Challenge against UK Watchdog over Online Safety Data Demands

Meta logo (Reuters)
Meta logo (Reuters)

Meta, TikTok and X on Friday lost a legal challenge against British regulator Ofcom over the amount of information it is demanding they provide under Britain's nascent online safety regime.

The challenge is one of the first in relation ‌to the ‌2023 Online Safety Act, ‌which ⁠sets tougher standards ⁠for platforms such as TikTok, X and Meta's Facebook and Instagram with the aim to protect children from harmful and illegal content, reported Reuters.

Ofcom has been gradually ⁠implementing the regime, with ‌its requirements backed ‌up by the threat of fines ‌of up to 10% of ‌a company's global turnover for the most serious breaches.

In February, it issued information notices requesting detailed content moderation ‌metrics from the tech companies, including data on how ⁠many ⁠posts were removed or had visibility restricted, and how many users were exposed to harmful content.

Meta, TikTok and X argued the notices create unprecedented regulatory burdens, but their case was rejected by London's High Court.

None of the companies, nor Ofcom, immediately responded to requests for comment.

Technology

US Regulator Bans Chinese Labs from Electronics Testing

A person uses his cellphone on a street in Beijing, China, 29 October 2026. (EPA)
A person uses his cellphone on a street in Beijing, China, 29 October 2026. (EPA)
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US Regulator Bans Chinese Labs from Electronics Testing

A person uses his cellphone on a street in Beijing, China, 29 October 2026. (EPA)
A person uses his cellphone on a street in Beijing, China, 29 October 2026. (EPA)

A US regulator voted Thursday to ban Chinese labs from testing electronic devices ranging from smartphones to cameras for use in the United States.

The move, which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) says aims to boost security, comes a year after the agency adopted rules to ban test labs "owned or controlled by foreign adversaries."

Around 82 percent of certified devices in the United States are tested in recognized labs in China, the FCC estimates.

"These labs are a critical gateway into American communications infrastructure. And their privileged role gives them access to sensitive and confidential information about electronic products often months before the devices enter the market," the FCC said in a statement.

The ban, which will come into force in 2028, applies to test labs and certification bodies in countries that do not have a mutual recognition agreement with the United States, the agency said.

China does not have such a pact with the FCC, according to its website.

The agency said it began investigating "bad labs" after discovering in 2024 that Chinese tech giant Huawei was running an FCC-recognized Test Lab.

The FCC had previously blacklisted telecommunications equipment made by Huawei and several other Chinese firms over security concerns.

The latest ban would also protect the US technology industry by fighting against the "offshoring of electronics manufacturing, which is often collocated where devices are tested", it added.

Beijing criticized the policy which it said harmed trade between the world's top two economies.

"The US has overstretched the concept of national security, abused state power and unjustifiably cracked down on Chinese companies," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a regular briefing on Friday.

"The US actions seriously hinder normal economic and trade exchanges between Chinese and US businesses and run counter to the interests of all parties, including US companies and consumers."

He said Beijing would "take necessary measures" to safeguard its interests.

The FCC has been taking steps to separate Chinese entities from US supply chains.

In March, the regulator barred authorizations of new consumer routers made in foreign countries, also on national security grounds.