Saudi Arabia Participates in GPAI Paris Meeting for First Time as Memberhttps://english.aawsat.com/technology/5282737-saudi-arabia-participates-gpai-paris-meeting-first-time-member
Saudi Arabia Participates in GPAI Paris Meeting for First Time as Member
Saudi Arabia, represented by the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA), participated for the first time as a member of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) during the partnership’s fifth plenary meeting, held at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) headquarters in Paris from June 9–11, the Saudi Press Agency said on Thursday.
The event brought together member countries, experts, and AI policymakers from around the world to discuss the future of artificial intelligence and international cooperation in the field.
The Kingdom was represented at the meeting by Rehab Alarfaj, General Manager of Strategic Partnerships and Indices at SDAIA, who participated in sessions and discussions focused on AI governance, the implementation of the OECD AI Principles, and the future direction of the GPAI’s work.
Alarfaj stressed the importance of developing practical tools to translate AI principles into actionable, real-world applications. These tools should account for differences in national priorities and levels of institutional maturity among countries, while ensuring the principles remain globally consistent and locally applicable.
AI Robot Cleaners Leave the Lab for China's Living Rooms
The service is a baby step towards a future in which robots increasingly take over manual labor from humans. WANG Zhao / AFP
Beijing cleaner Lin Meiqiong found her work a little easier the day she was paired with an unlikely new colleague -- a tall, wheeled robot with AI-powered tidying skills.
The 56-year-old and her white-and-silver partner, fitted with cameras and two mechanical claws, are part of a new human-robot cleaning service offered by Chinese household help platform 58.com.
It's a baby step towards a future espoused by tech evangelists in which robots increasingly take over manual labor from humans -- though at the moment, such services are largely a data-gathering exercise for companies and a novelty for curious customers.
"It's definitely different," Lin told AFP in between cleaning the kitchen and wiping down windows.
"I used to have to do everything myself," she said. "It's reduced the workload a bit."
The cleaning service, a collaboration between 58.com and Chinese robotics company X Square, costs 149 yuan ($22) for three hours and is available in Beijing and tech hub Shenzhen.
Helped into the apartment by an X Square engineer, the AI-operated Quanta X1 Pro robot uses its cameras to identify areas it could spruce up.
As Lin scrubbed the floor on her knees, it picked up rubbish and folded clothes strewn across a sofa.
Grasping a pair of dark grey trousers, it raised its upper body to stretch the fabric taut, before laying it flat and arranging it into neat halves.
The process took several minutes and resembled a child learning to fold clothes for the first time.
Future iterations of the robot will respond to voice commands and even be able to chat, said the engineer, Hu Bowen.
- 'Better than a lab' -
Around 200 households have booked the service since it was rolled out in March.
Tan Pei, who works in advertising and booked the robot to clean her Beijing flat, said she had chosen the service because she was interested to "see what it could do".
"Even though it's not that perfect, there are still parts of it that surprised me," such as folding a pair of trousers "quite well", she said.
China's robots have wowed audiences with fluid dancing and set-piece martial arts displays onstage, but their application and performance in real-life settings remains limited.
For companies like X Square, the logic of launching an imperfect service lies in data collection for so-called embodied artificial intelligence.
Unlike large language models trained on vast quantities of internet content, robots lack comparable real-world datasets.
"We don't have a robot internet yet," Christoforos Mavrogiannis from the University of Michigan told AFP.
"It is much more informative to put the robot out there and study what happens than staying forever in the lab."
X Square engineer Hu said he sends his robots to work in a "completely unfamiliar environment".
"That is very challenging, but this unfamiliar data is also very helpful for the robot's growth."
As investment into embodied AI booms, similar trials in China include robots directing traffic in cities like Hangzhou or working on factory floors.
On the domestic help front, firm GigaAI also plans to deploy 100 humanoid robots into households in central Wuhan this autumn for free home-service trials.
Investors have poured more than 57.7 billion yuan ($8.5 billion) into China's embodied AI industry so far this year, already soaring past the total for last year as a whole, according to business database ITjuzi.
- 'Very elementary stage' -
But a myriad of hurdles stand in the way of widespread deployment.
As the Quanta X1 Pro's clothes folding demonstrated, robots still can't match human dexterity.
"Even though many companies are working on building better hands and building autonomy for hands, we don't have that yet," the University of Michigan's Mavrogiannis said.
There are multiple regulatory issues even once the physical capability is there.
Privacy will become a big issue, as robots would have access to huge amounts of personal data.
"We don't know where that data is going, where it's located... who is looking at that information," said Valeria Alessandra Macalupu Chira from Queensland University of Technology.
The safety of clients and their homes is another unresolved issue.
"I think we are still at a very elementary stage," said Yang Jianfei from Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.
Robots currently require supervision by humans who can activate emergency stop functions, he noted, and there are not yet recognized industry-wide safety standards.
Experts agree broad adoption seems a long way off.
Asked whether she thought robots would revolutionize her industry, cleaner Lin did not seem too concerned.
"Compared with people, it's obviously still not quite there," she said. "After all, it's a robot."
Meta Taps Reliance for 1st AI-enabled Data Center in Indiahttps://english.aawsat.com/technology/5282339-meta-taps-reliance-1st-ai-enabled-data-center-india
The Meta logo is displayed on a mobile phone over a stock market graph displayed on a laptop screen in Liverpool, Britain, 09 June 2026. EPA/ADAM VAUGHAN
Meta Taps Reliance for 1st AI-enabled Data Center in India
The Meta logo is displayed on a mobile phone over a stock market graph displayed on a laptop screen in Liverpool, Britain, 09 June 2026. EPA/ADAM VAUGHAN
Facebook-parent Meta and Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries on Wednesday announced a deal to develop an AI-enabled data center in the state of Gujarat, as the US tech giant scales its digital footprint globally.
The project, to be built in Jamnagar district, comes as technology giants race to expand computing capacity needed to support generative AI services in the world's fastest-growing major economy.
Reliance will develop a 168-megawatt data center to be delivered within two years, while Meta will lease capacity from the facility, the companies said in a joint statement.
According to AFP, the financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg said it was "proud" to partner with Reliance on its "first AI-enabled data center in India.”
"This world-class facility in Jamnagar will help us scale our AI infrastructure globally while deepening our long-term investment in India's economy," Zuckerberg said.
Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani described the announcement as India's "first built-to-suit data center for a global technology leader of Meta's scale.”
India, home to more than a billion internet users, has seen a wave of investment announcements from global and domestic firms seeking to tap rising demand for cloud computing, artificial intelligence and data storage.
Google and Amazon have expanded their cloud infrastructure footprint in the country, while Indian conglomerates including Adani Group and Reliance have unveiled large-scale data center plans.
Last week, Australian data center operator AirTrunk said it would invest US$30 billion in India by 2030 to develop five gigawatts of data center capacity.
Reliance is India's biggest privately held conglomerate and its Jamnagar refinery is billed as the world's largest.
Jamnagar is also home to what Reliance says is "one of the world's largest wildlife rescue, care and conservation centers.”
IBM: Saudi AI Sovereignty No Longer Just About Data Locationhttps://english.aawsat.com/technology/5282335-ibm-saudi-ai-sovereignty-no-longer-just-about-data-location
IBM: Saudi AI Sovereignty No Longer Just About Data Location
Saudi digital sovereignty is no longer only about where data is stored, but about control over infrastructure, models and operations. Shutterstock
Digital sovereignty in Saudi Arabia is no longer just about where data is stored. It is now about who controls the infrastructure, models, operations, keys, and digital supply chains when conditions change.
That question dominated an IBM roundtable on digital sovereignty in the Kingdom, as Saudi Arabia accelerates the digital agenda of Vision 2030 and raises its ambitions in artificial intelligence, cloud infrastructure, operational resilience, and governance.
A gap between awareness and readiness
IBM says Saudi market findings show that 90% of Saudi executives believe AI sovereignty should be part of their business strategy in 2026. But the discussion pointed to a much lower level of actual readiness, with participants saying only “two to three out of every 10” clients in the Kingdom are adequately prepared.
Ayman AlRashed, IBM’s regional vice president in Saudi Arabia, said the debate is no longer theoretical or something to postpone. It is “a discussion happening today,” he said.
The gap, he said, is not about awareness. It is about the distance between believing sovereignty belongs in strategy and having the ability to execute it. Many organizations, he added, still approach sovereignty in traditional terms, asking “where is the data?” and “where is the computing?” even as the issue has become far wider.
Ayman AlRashed, IBM’s regional vice president in Saudi Arabia (IBM)
A Saudi study by the IBM Institute for Business Value found that 63% of Saudi leaders are concerned about reliance on specific regions for computing resources, above the global average. Another 85% believe geopolitical and economic issues threaten technology investments.
At the same time, 73% of Saudi leaders believe that geopolitical volatility could create new business opportunities in 2026 if organizations adapt.
Sovereignty is not just location
During the session, attended by Asharq Al-Awsat, Sabine Holl, IBM’s vice president of technical sales and chief technology officer for the Middle East and Africa, said sovereignty has moved from a regulatory demand to a strategic priority.
Holl said the debate began with data sovereignty, whether data was located inside or outside the country. But recent events, including data center outages and geopolitical tensions, have shown that location alone does not guarantee control.
Digital sovereignty, she said, is now tied to control over data, infrastructure and technology development.
IBM divides the concept into four pillars: operational sovereignty, data sovereignty, technology sovereignty and AI sovereignty. In that sense, sovereignty is no longer merely compliance with local data-residency rules. It is the continuing ability to know who can access systems, who manages the environment, where models run and how an organization can prove compliance when needed.
Holl put it plainly: Sovereignty is not just about location.
The question, she said, is not only whether data is stored in a local data center. It is who can control it, under which identity it can be decrypted and whether the organization has a recovery and operating plan if a regional outage or sudden crisis hits.
IBM says Saudi market findings show that 90% of Saudi executives believe AI sovereignty should be part of their business strategy in 2026. Shutterstock
AI complicates the equation
AI makes the issue harder. Models and agents do not simply store or read data. They can access multiple sources, interpret information, suggest decisions or take action inside an organization’s systems.
That changes the sovereignty question. Does an organization control only where its data sits, or does it also control what AI does with that data?
That explains IBM’s focus on what it calls a new operating model for AI. The company says organizations advancing in AI are not merely deploying more tools. They are redesigning how they work. IBM says the model rests on four connected systems: agents, data, automation and hybrid.
In this context, IBM announced the next generation of Watsonx Orchestrate to coordinate and manage AI agents across different environments, along with capabilities linked to real-time data through Confluent, watsonx.data, IBM Concert for intelligent operations and IBM Sovereign Core for operational sovereignty.
During the session, Asharq Al-Awsat asked whether sovereignty becomes harder when agents enter enterprise workflows, because data is no longer only stored, but also used, interpreted and acted upon.
Holl said organizations now face a reality in which agents are spreading “everywhere,” inside their own environments and on other platforms, making “supervision” and auditability essential. She said part of IBM’s operating model includes what she described as an “agent control layer” to manage and monitor those agents.
From cloud to operational sovereignty
IBM sees a hybrid cloud strategy as central to building sovereignty.
Holl said cloud changed how sovereignty is viewed, especially in the Middle East and Africa, where laws and requirements on data access and use emerged early. That helped shape IBM’s hybrid cloud strategy, she said, so that the benefits of cloud are not limited to public environments, but can also apply to private clouds and on-premises systems.
The “promise of cloud,” built on the idea that everything would move to the cloud, has not fully materialized, Holl said. Many organizations still operate across hybrid and multi-cloud environments without sufficient transparency or clear audit and control capabilities.
If an organization cannot answer “at the push of a button” where systems are running, who controls them and whether they comply with requirements, then it is not truly sovereign, she said.
IBM calls this “sovereignty by design.”
Holl said an existing environment cannot simply be patched later to become sovereign. She compared it to a small boat on a lake, saying it cannot simply be repaired into a ship capable of crossing an ocean and facing a storm.
In practice, that means sovereignty must be built into the architecture from the start, through portability, choice, open platforms, recovery plans and control over keys and identities.
IBM says human skills are the currency of the AI economy. Shutterstock
Turning sovereignty into operations
IBM says IBM Sovereign Core is designed to operationalize and verify digital sovereignty, rather than just a written policy.
The company describes it as a platform that helps governments, organizations and service providers build AI-ready sovereign environments, with the ability to prove control and compliance across hybrid settings.
Dinesh Nirmal, senior vice president, products, software at IBM, said AI has made sovereignty “a runtime requirement, not a policy statement.”
AlRashed said that as AI becomes part of institutional and national strategies, organizations need to innovate “without compromising operational authority, trust or regulatory requirements.”
The platform includes a customer-managed control layer, identity services, encryption, data within sovereign boundaries, continuous compliance monitoring, automated audit evidence, prebuilt regulatory frameworks and controlled deployment of AI models, inference and agents within defined sovereign limits.
It also relies on open technologies, including Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat AI, and supports a partner ecosystem that includes AMD, Dell, Mistral, MongoDB and Palo Alto Networks.
Holl said the point is not that every organization must build a local server or chip. It is that organizations must be able to choose and move between components and environments when conditions change.
Shortages of graphics processing units, memory and chips could become a sovereignty risk, she said, if an organization is locked into one supplier or an architecture it cannot replace.
Resilience is part of sovereignty
A key theme in the discussion was that sovereignty cannot be separated from operational resilience. An organization that cannot recover from an outage, cyberattack or geopolitical crisis does not, in practice, have the control it believes it has.
Holl said some backup and disaster recovery strategies failed because they were not seriously tested or treated as an operational necessity rather than a useful option.
In Saudi Arabia, the issue is gaining weight as digital transformation expands across sensitive sectors, including government, energy, finance, telecommunications and health care.
Participants said some entities, especially government bodies, are no longer just waiting for policies to be completed. They are moving practically to shift workloads to sovereign providers, or to ensure that those managing environments are located inside the Kingdom.
Sovereignty and human skills
The discussion was not limited to technology. AlRashed linked digital sovereignty to people, saying AI cannot deliver value without skills and trust in systems.
“Human skills are the currency of the AI economy,” he said. Some organizations, he added, deploy AI but fail to achieve the expected value because users lack the confidence or ability to benefit from it.
That adds another layer to the Saudi debate. Sovereignty is not only about who owns the data center or cloud platform. It is also about who operates it, who understands the risks, who can prove compliance and who can change course when rules, markets or threats shift.
In IBM’s 2026 trends report, 88% of Saudi executives said agentic AI helps them make better, faster decisions during disruption.
But that optimism creates a parallel challenge. The more agents can support decisions or carry out tasks, the greater the need for clear governance, auditing, lifecycle management for models and agents and the ability to stop or adjust what is not working as required.
A Saudi model taking shape
Saudi Arabia appears to occupy a distinct place in this debate. Holl described it as an example of a market building local data centers and working with global cloud providers to bring technology into the country, allowing innovation within local regulatory frameworks.
At the same time, the figures show that concern about external dependence on computing, chips and global providers is greater than the global average.
The debate, then, is not about choosing between full isolation and full openness. It is about building a model that balances access to global innovation with local control, the ability to prove compliance and the operation of AI within clear boundaries.
In this context, digital sovereignty becomes part of the operating architecture of the digital economy, not just a legal clause or regulatory requirement.
As AI moves from pilots to operations, and from models to agents, the question raised by the session becomes more urgent for Saudi organizations: Do they merely have data inside their borders, or do they have full control over what happens to that data, who uses it, how models and agents operate on it and what happens when conditions change?
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