Digital Cooperation Organization Adopts Riyadh AI Declaration

Digital Cooperation Organization Secretary General, Deemah Al Yahya addresses the summit on Tuesday. (SPA)
Digital Cooperation Organization Secretary General, Deemah Al Yahya addresses the summit on Tuesday. (SPA)
TT

Digital Cooperation Organization Adopts Riyadh AI Declaration

Digital Cooperation Organization Secretary General, Deemah Al Yahya addresses the summit on Tuesday. (SPA)
Digital Cooperation Organization Secretary General, Deemah Al Yahya addresses the summit on Tuesday. (SPA)

Member states of the Digital Cooperation Organization (DCO) agreed Tuesday to adopt the Riyadh AI Call for Action Declaration (RAICA), which seeks to use AI technology to benefit people, communities, nations, and the world.

The declaration, announced at Saudi Arabia’s Second Global AI Summit, was signed by all members of DCO including Bahrain, Cyprus, Djibouti, Kuwait, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Jordan, Rwanda, and Saudi Arabia.

The summit, hosted under the patronage of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, kicked off on Tuesday and concludes on Thursday.

The call to action aims to advance the DCO’s commitment to identify and address present, emerging and future humanitarian issues in the field of AI.

The declaration highlights the different ways AI can be used as a tool to benefit the lives of millions of people around the world by improving the quality of work, developing better-designed public policies and nurturing efficiencies into the ecosystem.

“DCO was created with the ethos of establishing an inclusive digital economy through collaboration across diverse entities at all levels,” said Deemah Al Yahya, secretary general of DCO.

“The RAICA declaration is this idea put into practice. By signing this declaration all DCO member states are reaffirming their shared desire to usher in a brighter future for all by harnessing the huge potential of AI to improve the lives of people around the world,” added Al Yahya.

The declaration highlights seven key pillars that will help to bring this future into reality. Each is composed of principles that seek to address methods to ensure that benefits of AI are enjoyed by all while harming none.

The DCO has developed a series of action areas to help the seven pillars to be implemented.

In other news, Saudi Arabia’s Mozn, a market leader in enterprise AI technologies, participated on Tuesday as a “Technology Partner” at the AI Summit.

Mozn announced that it was building the world’s largest and most effective Arabic NLU models and demonstrated its advanced software technology applications and use cases.

Mozn introduced delegates to OSOS, its leading-edge natural-language understanding (NLU) technology.



India's TCS Expects Retail, Manufacturing Revival after Banking Recovery

A man walks past a logo of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) before a press conference announcing the company's quarterly results in Mumbai, India, January 11, 2024. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Photo
A man walks past a logo of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) before a press conference announcing the company's quarterly results in Mumbai, India, January 11, 2024. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Photo
TT

India's TCS Expects Retail, Manufacturing Revival after Banking Recovery

A man walks past a logo of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) before a press conference announcing the company's quarterly results in Mumbai, India, January 11, 2024. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Photo
A man walks past a logo of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) before a press conference announcing the company's quarterly results in Mumbai, India, January 11, 2024. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Photo

India's Tata Consultancy Services (TCS.NS), expects its retail and manufacturing clients in North America to step up spending on tech, following a similar upturn in its banking and financial services segment, a top executive of the nation's No. 1 software-services exporter, said.

"We have heard about good holiday season sales (in the US) that should boost consumer sentiment and manufacturing has some of the labour issues behind them," CFO Samir Seksaria told Reuters.

"If these three verticals (along with banking) improve overall, we should see a good recovery," he said.

Seksaria's cautious optimism highlights broader global economic uncertainties and sticky inflation that have forced clients to keep a leash on tech spending.

The company's revenue in North America, its largest market, declined for the fifth consecutive quarter even as banking and financial services posted their best performance since June 2023.

Retail and manufacturing are the second- and fourth- largest revenue contributors to the $29 billion behemoth.

Last month, Walmart Inc (WMT.N), Amazon.com (AMZN.O), and fast-growing e-commerce sites Shein and PDD Holding's (PDD.O), Temu, saw record-breaking sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

US online spending too rose nearly 9% to $241.4 billion during the recent holiday season.

TCS' communications and media vertical, a capital-intensive segment that is currently one of the company's laggards, will also see some pickup if interest rates start to go down, Seksaria said.

The comments echo CEO Krithivasan's sentiment that the incoming US administration is likely to remove policy uncertainty and boost client confidence to spend on discretionary projects.

On Friday, its Mumbai-listed shares closed up 5.6%, its highest single day rise since July 2024.

TCS also played down concerns over the rise in insourcing by multinational corporations through global capability centres (GCCs), potentially slashing work that would have been contracted to IT players in the past.

A growing number of global companies are increasing their local offices in India and expanding in-house teams, adding roles such as engineering, cybersecurity and accounting and finance. India's GCC market size is estimated to reach $105 billion by 2030.

"Initially, there could a cost advantage, probably GCCs are right now being seen as global cost saving centers. But as things go into next year, maintaining cost and delivering cost productivity in a 3-year to 7-year period is where the cyclicality of opening and shutting of GCCs keeps coming," said Seksaria.

In 2023, Infosys (INFY.NS), acquired the captive arm of Danske Bank (DANSEN.UL) and before that TCS acquired Post Bank AG's unit of 1,500 employees in late 2020.