عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Technology

SDAIA Utilizes AI Technology to Streamline Process of Pilgrims' Arrival at the Kingdom's Ports

SDAIA's current initiatives result from continuous support from His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince, Prime Minister, and Chairman of the SDAIA Board of Directors. - SPA
SDAIA's current initiatives result from continuous support from His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince, Prime Minister, and Chairman of the SDAIA Board of Directors. - SPA
TT
TT

SDAIA Utilizes AI Technology to Streamline Process of Pilgrims' Arrival at the Kingdom's Ports

SDAIA's current initiatives result from continuous support from His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince, Prime Minister, and Chairman of the SDAIA Board of Directors. - SPA
SDAIA's current initiatives result from continuous support from His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince, Prime Minister, and Chairman of the SDAIA Board of Directors. - SPA

The Saudi Data & AI Authority (SDAIA) played a key role in streamlining the arrival process for pilgrims this year by employing data and artificial intelligence technologies and investing in enhancing the technical infrastructure at 14 air, sea, and land ports across the Kingdom.
SDAIA leveraged artificial intelligence to bolster its data analysis and anticipatory capabilities. It collaborated with government agencies to secure reliable communication circuits, both core and backups, guaranteeing uninterrupted service at the ports. To further ensure smooth operations, SDAIA assembled a dedicated national technical team for the Hajj season, SPA reported.
The SDAIA team offers services at many locations throughout the Hajj season, including King Abdulaziz International Airport, Jeddah Islamic Port, Taif Airport, Prince Mohammed bin Abdulaziz International Airport, the Empty Quarter, Batha, Salwa, Al-Raqqi, King Fahd Causeway, Halat Ammar, Neom Port, Jadidat Arar, Al-Haditha, and Al-Wadiah.
SDAIA's current initiatives result from continuous support from Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince, Prime Minister, and Chairman of the SDAIA Board of Directors. The objective is to optimize the utilization of data and AI technologies, particularly for the benefit of pilgrims, aligning with the goals of Vision 2030.
SDAIA gave the Kingdom's border crossings, sorting centers, and security control centers a tech boost by providing new systems, services, and tools to improve efficiency.
For this year's Hajj, SDAIA set up a special tech support room to handle any problems faced by different organizations involved. It also equipped teams at all ports with mobile tech kits so they could quickly fix issues on the spot.
Furthermore, SDAIA made sure all the workstations and network equipment in the Hajj halls at the ports were up-to-date by performing preventive maintenance. It built and installed biometric scanners at the Kingdom's border crossings, and took care of setting up the devices, installing the approved software, and training Hajj personnel on how to use everything new.
SDAIA has been rolling out innovative tech solutions to improve the Hajj experience. It launched "Banan," a mobile device that uses biometric data to identify people on-site. This gadget is perfect for field workers managing large groups at different locations during Hajj.
SDAIA also developed Sawaher and Baseer platforms to help manage crowd sizes effectively at various Hajj sites. These platforms ensure each location does not get overcrowded, promoting a safer and smoother experience for pilgrims.
The authority has integrated many pilgrim services into the Tawakkalna app. Pilgrims can now manage everything from Manasik Gate procedures to displaying their pilgrim cards and entry permits for vehicles and personnel working on Hajj in collaboration with Public Security.

Most Viewed

 
 
Technology

Pinterest Deepens Amazon Partnership with $4 billion Cloud Deal

FILE PHOTO: Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of Amazon logo in this illustration taken, February 19, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of Amazon logo in this illustration taken, February 19, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
TT
TT

Pinterest Deepens Amazon Partnership with $4 billion Cloud Deal

FILE PHOTO: Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of Amazon logo in this illustration taken, February 19, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of Amazon logo in this illustration taken, February 19, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

Pinterest said on Thursday it would pay Amazon Web Services $4 billion for cloud services through 2031, as the social media company strengthens a long-term partnership with its largest-ever deal.

Shares of Pinterest rose nearly 6%, while those of Amazon were up 1.5%.

Amazon.com's cloud computing unit will provide Pinterest its custom chip processors, including Graviton and Trainium, to help scale its AI initiatives.

"This expanded commitment with AWS gives us the compute flexibility, hardware optionality, and infrastructure efficiency to accelerate our AI vision," Pinterest's Chief Technology Officer Matt Madrigal said in a statement.

Pinterest has been investing in AI tools by rolling out upgrades to its Performance+ ad suite, to boost growth amid intensifying competition from major players such as TikTok and Meta's Instagram and Facebook.

Pinterest said it had worked with AWS since 2010 to improve the reliability and performance of the company's core services.

The company, which last month forecast second-quarter revenue above Wall Street estimates, said it plans to diversify its accelerated compute usage with Amazon's custom silicon to improve price performance for its AI needs.

This includes leveraging AWS Trainium for large language models and vision-language models that power features like personalized visual search and AI-assisted discovery on its platform.

Technology

Meta Enters Enterprise AI Race with New Business Agent

The logo of Meta at the Meta Lab in Los Angeles, California, US, May 20, 2026. (Reuters)
The logo of Meta at the Meta Lab in Los Angeles, California, US, May 20, 2026. (Reuters)
TT
TT

Meta Enters Enterprise AI Race with New Business Agent

The logo of Meta at the Meta Lab in Los Angeles, California, US, May 20, 2026. (Reuters)
The logo of Meta at the Meta Lab in Los Angeles, California, US, May 20, 2026. (Reuters)

Meta Platforms on Wednesday unveiled an artificial intelligence agent aimed at helping businesses carry out day-to-day operations, positioning the social media giant as a player in the enterprise AI market.

Announced at the company's WhatsApp-focused Conversations conference in London, the new product expands on existing business messaging services by enabling "agentic" capabilities in which the assistant can take actions like booking calendar appointments and closing sales on behalf of businesses.

The company said more than 1 million businesses were already using earlier chatbot versions of such agents on WhatsApp and Messenger. The new version will be added to Instagram as well and rolled out globally to businesses of all sizes.

The move hints at Meta's ambitions to compete with rivals like OpenAI, Anthropic and Alphabet's Google in the market ‌for enterprise applications ‌of its AI tools, leveraging the reach of its WhatsApp, ‌Instagram ⁠and Facebook apps.

"This ⁠is definitely an enterprise play," Naomi Gleit, Meta's head of product, told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the conference.

The Business Agent can be customized to respond to queries on those apps, channeling a company's tone and handling tasks such as answering frequently asked questions, qualifying leads and escalating complex queries to human staff when needed.

Businesses will initially be able to access the tool for free, with paid subscription options planned in the coming months.

"We actually want to ⁠take actions now. We actually want it to be able to ‌complete the payment, to process the booking, to place ‌the order," going beyond "rule-based automations" for legacy bots, she said.

Alongside the new Business Agent offerings inside ‌Meta's apps, the company is also launching a broader "Business Agent Platform" aimed at giving businesses ‌the infrastructure to build custom AI agents to help them manage their operations elsewhere.

The platform is connected to hundreds of non-Meta systems like Shopify, Zendesk and Shopee, where those agents can be deployed, and provides larger businesses with enterprise-grade controls, guardrails and measurement, the company said.

Gleit is spearheading the company's efforts ‌to expand into new lines of business around AI agents, including with a new team, Enterprise Solutions, announced as part of a ⁠recent companywide restructuring around ⁠AI.

The team will send squads of forward-deployed engineers to embed with enterprise customers, a model used by AI companies such as Anthropic that is aimed at navigating internal politics around AI adoption and writing custom code to help models deliver results.

Its scope is currently focused on new business agents, but it is also working to build and sell agentic AI products that businesses can use for additional internal functions.

Gleit is also working to consolidate the different AI agents Meta has built, including internal workflow-oriented tooling, a user-facing Meta AI support bot and a separate ads-focused "business assistant" launched globally last month, she said.

"The number one thing I hear, especially from small businesses, is 'I just want to go to one place that can do all the things,'" she said.

"You want to make things modular, and you also need to be willing to evolve, because the technology is moving so quickly."

Technology

UK Allows Websites to Opt Out of Google AI Search

FILE PHOTO: The Google logo is pictured at the entrance to the Google offices in London, Britain January 18, 2019. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The Google logo is pictured at the entrance to the Google offices in London, Britain January 18, 2019. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo
TT
TT

UK Allows Websites to Opt Out of Google AI Search

FILE PHOTO: The Google logo is pictured at the entrance to the Google offices in London, Britain January 18, 2019. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The Google logo is pictured at the entrance to the Google offices in London, Britain January 18, 2019. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo

Britain's competition watchdog said Wednesday that it had ordered Google to allow UK website owners to opt out of having their content used by the US technology giant's AI search.

According to AFP, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) called the change a "world first" after it had proposed the measure in January.

Website publishers, particularly media outlets, claim that artificial intelligence models take their content without compensation.

They also argue that the AI-generated summaries discourage clicks to publishers' original pages, reducing traffic to their sites and in turn cutting their advertising revenue.

Google said Wednesday that sites opting out would not receive traffic or impressions from its generative AI features.

In response to the opt-out ruling, Google said that "Today, we're beginning to test a new control that lets website owners manage how their links and content appear in generative AI search features," its Search Ecosystem general manager, Mrinalini Loew, said in a statement.

The CMA said the ruling "will secure a fairer deal for publishers and consumers.”

It added that Google is "required to make sure that publisher content is properly attributed, using clear links, in AI-generated search results.”

The CMA last year designated Google with "strategic market status,” subjecting it to tougher regulation alongside other technology giants.

"With features like (Google's) AI Overviews rapidly reshaping online search, it is crucial that content publishers, including news organizations, have appropriate bargaining power over how their content is used," CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell said in a statement.

AI Overviews currently have more than 2.5 billion monthly users, according to Google, which last month showed off plans to turn its traditional search bar into an AI assistant.