Author: Art Ryan

Ooredoo Group is making an unusually large bet on the AI infrastructure market outside its traditional Middle East base. One significant move is the Ooredoo investment in Zankore, which marks a new direction for the company. The Qatar-based telecommunications company has committed approximately $800 million to Zankore, a newly launched AI computing and neocloud platform based in Indonesia. Ooredoo will become Zankore’s founding shareholder and lead investor, taking a 49% stake in the business. This is not simply another telecom company adding artificial intelligence to a product announcement. Ooredoo is moving directly into the expensive physical layer of the AI…

Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company is reportedly considering a ¥1 trillion, or roughly $6.3 billion, investment in a major artificial intelligence data center in northern Japan. This potential project would mark the development of a Mubadala AI data center in Japan. The proposed facility would be built in Akita Prefecture and could provide around 500 megawatts of capacity. That is not a modest regional server project. At that scale, it would become a significant piece of Japan’s emerging AI infrastructure and one of Mubadala’s largest individual data center bets. Bloomberg reported the discussions on August 6, citing a person familiar…

Google is widening access to Dreambeans, its experimental AI app that turns personal data into illustrated daily stories. Until now, the experience was reserved for Google AI Ultra subscribers. That restriction has changed. AI Pro subscribers in the United States can now use the app as well, giving a much larger audience access to one of Google’s more unusual AI experiments. What Is Dreambeans? Dreambeans isn’t another chatbot. It doesn’t wait for prompts or questions. Instead, the app quietly works in the background, pulling information from Google services that users choose to connect. Gmail, Calendar, Photos, YouTube, and Search can…

[6 August 2026] Dubai and Ajman, UAE. ruya, the UAE’s digital-first Islamic community bank, and Magure, a UAE-headquartered enterprise AI company, today announced a long-term strategic partnership to make ruya an AI-native bank one where intelligence is woven into how the bank serves customers, runs operations and manages risk, rather than bolted on as isolated projects. We didn’t set out to run AI projects we set out to build a bank where intelligence is part of the foundation,” said Christoph Koster, CEO of ruya. “As an ethical, Shari’ah-compliant bank, we hold ourselves to a high standard on how technology treats…

Celestica is preparing to raise $3 billion through a new equity offering, giving the company a much larger pool of capital to chase what it describes as unprecedented demand for AI infrastructure. The Toronto-based hardware and supply chain specialist announced a treasury offering of common shares on August 5, 2026. An exact share price and final number of shares were not included in the initial announcement. Underwriters are also expected to receive a 30-day option to purchase up to 15% more shares than the original offering. That is a serious amount of fresh capital. It also says something about where…

Ajman has moved its government artificial intelligence strategy out of the planning room and into its executive phase. Sheikh Humaid bin Ammar Al Nuaimi, Member of the Ajman Executive Council and leader of the Ajman Artificial Intelligence Programme, announced the start of institutional implementation across government entities on August 5, 2026. That distinction matters. Government technology programmes often arrive with ambitious targets, new committees and carefully written frameworks. The harder part comes later, when individual departments must turn those plans into working services. Ajman is now entering that harder part. Government Entities Begin Coordinated AI Implementation The executive phase follows…

Tuwaiq Academy has opened a new artificial intelligence centre in Riyadh with NVIDIA, adding another piece to Saudi Arabia’s fast-growing AI strategy. The Tuwaiq Academy NVIDIA AI Innovation Centre will focus on practical training, technical certification and the development of Saudi professionals capable of building real-world AI systems. Natural language processing will be one of its early priorities. That matters in a country where demand is growing for AI tools that can understand Arabic, handle regional dialects and work inside government and commercial services. The centre was launched at Tuwaiq Academy’s headquarters in Riyadh, with NVIDIA representatives, technology specialists and…

Warba Bank has launched Bdr AI, a voice-enabled banking assistant built directly into its mobile app. It does more than answer questions or guide customers through menus. It can carry out supported banking transactions after receiving instructions through voice or text. Customers can speak to the assistant in Arabic or English. More importantly for its home market, Bdr AI understands conversational Kuwaiti Arabic rather than forcing users to rely on formal commands that few people use in daily conversation. Warba Bank is presenting the system as the world’s first agentic AI banking service capable of executing transactions through voice instructions.…

The AI infrastructure race is no longer just about buying faster GPUs. Those processors need a constant supply of data. As AI agents work with larger context windows, company records, stored memories and thousands of simultaneous tasks, the systems sitting behind the GPUs are starting to feel the strain. NVIDIA used the Future of Memory and Storage conference in Santa Clara to outline how it plans to tackle that problem. The company announced that it is opening its cuFile application programming interfaces, expanding industry work around GPU-driven storage and pushing storage closer to the role traditionally handled by system memory.…

AI security incidents are usually handled behind closed doors. A company investigates the problem, fixes what it can and moves on. The rest of the industry may never hear what failed, how the attack unfolded or which safeguard proved useless. A new proposal backed by NVIDIA, the Linux Foundation and members of the Open Secure AI Alliance wants to change that. The Shared AI Findings Exchange, or SAFE, would create a confidential framework for reporting AI security incidents and near misses. The goal is not to publish every breach or expose affected companies. It is to identify repeated failures and…

Samsung Electronics has revealed a new generation of memory technology built for an AI industry that is quickly running into limits around speed, storage capacity and energy use. The South Korean chipmaker used the Future of Memory and Storage 2026 conference in Santa Clara, California, to present several new technologies. The line-up included zHBM, zNAND-O and a prototype V10 Bonding V-NAND chip containing more than 400 layers. Some of the products remain concept designs rather than chips ready for large-scale deployment. Still, Samsung is making its direction fairly clear. Memory can no longer sit quietly beside the processor while AI…

BigID is pushing deeper into enterprise AI governance with a new sovereignty standard. The standard is built for organisations that cannot afford to lose control of their data, models or security infrastructure. The New York-based data security company says its platform can operate entirely within a customer-controlled environment. That includes public cloud, private cloud, on-premises systems and fully disconnected networks. No external AI model is required to keep the system working. That distinction matters as companies expand their use of generative AI. Meanwhile, regulators, security teams and government agencies demand tighter control over where sensitive information is stored and processed.…

Security practitioners now sit between two conversations that rarely meet: using AI to discover vulnerabilities faster while also securing the AI systems their organizations deploy. But new research from Pentest-Tools.com suggests the challenge is keeping up with the volume of vulnerabilities that AI tools generate. In a survey of security practitioners using AI during pentesting engagements, only 20.3% of respondents said they have a workflow in place to triage 500 or more AI-generated vulnerability candidates from a single engagement. Another 38.6% said handling that volume would strain their team, while 29.7% said it would be unmanageable. The findings suggest that AI is…

Dubai’s push to become a global centre for AI-driven healthcare just gained another project. Longevium has secured $7 million in its first funding round and is moving ahead with plans to build a Longevity AI Research Laboratory at Dubai Science Park. The facility is scheduled to open in the fourth quarter of 2026. This gives the company a dedicated research hub focused on extending healthy human lifespan through artificial intelligence and biomedical science. A Research Hub Instead of Another Clinic The new laboratory is not being built as a medical centre for patients. Instead, Longevium says the facility will operate…

Saudi Arabia has taken another step toward formalising AI skills across the country. The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) has officially opened registration for its AI Professional Badges, giving AI practitioners a nationally recognised way to validate their technical expertise. The programme first appeared earlier this year during the International Conference on Data and AI Capacity Building (ICAN 2026), but registration is now open to eligible professionals across the Kingdom. AI Engineers and Data Scientists Lead the First Phase SDAIA is starting with two of the industry’s most in-demand roles. The first badge is designed for AI Engineers,…

Artificial intelligence may soon handle much of the work involved in planning a trip. It can search routes, compare hotel rates, check reward balances and weigh whether using points makes more sense than paying cash. That convenience creates an awkward problem for travel brands. When an AI agent makes the comparison, it has little reason to favour the airline or hotel a traveller usually books. Habit becomes less valuable. A slightly cheaper fare, a better redemption or a more flexible room could be enough to send the booking elsewhere. Payments platform Currensea believes co-branded reward debit cards could give European…

Planning a city break through an AI chatbot usually starts well enough. Ask for a three-day itinerary in Rome or Lisbon and it will quickly produce a neat list of landmarks, restaurants and neighbourhoods. The problem comes when you try to book something. Tour times may have changed. Activities may no longer operate. A highly recommended experience might not even have spaces available on the dates you are travelling. GuruWalk wants to close that gap. The travel platform has launched integrations for both ChatGPT and Claude, giving the AI assistants access to its live catalogue of walking tours, activities and…

Anthropic’s record-breaking copyright settlement is finally moving towards payouts, but authors are not treating the case as a clean victory. A federal judge granted final approval to the $1.5 billion Anthropic AI copyright settlement on July 20, 2026, ending a closely watched class-action case over the company’s acquisition and copying of pirated books. The money is substantial. The questions left behind are even bigger. Authors and publishers are still trying to work out what the deal changes for creative work, AI training and the fast-growing market for copyrighted data. Anthropic Will Pay Authors and Publishers for Nearly 500,000 Books The…

Index Ventures is putting considerably more money behind its belief that artificial intelligence will reshape industries far beyond the chatbot market. The venture capital firm has announced new funds that bring its total available investment capital to $3.5 billion, covering startups from their earliest seed rounds through large growth-stage investments. This is not one giant AI-only fund. The money is spread across three vehicles, giving Index room to invest in young companies, established startups and businesses approaching the public markets. AI, though, sits right at the centre of the firm’s pitch. Index Ventures Splits the Capital Across Three Funds The…

Saudi Arabia’s HUMAIN has made a strategic investment in MOZN, bringing together two local AI companies with a fairly direct goal: move artificial intelligence out of pilot programmes and into the daily operations of banks and government organisations. The deal is HUMAIN’s first investment in a Saudi company and one of the earliest transactions completed through HUMAIN Ventures. It also gives the Public Investment Fund-backed company a more established route into regulated industries where security, data control and compliance matter just as much as model performance. HUMAIN and MOZN will jointly develop enterprise AI products for financial institutions and public…