Cisco executive David Meads says the UAE and Saudi Arabia have become global frontrunners in digital transformation, driven by aggressive investment in artificial intelligence and the ability to take swift decisions that other regions struggle to match.
Speaking on Arabian Business’s AB Majlis podcast, the Senior Vice President of Cisco Middle East, Africa, Türkiye, Romania and CIS Countries described the two Gulf nations as “absolutely at the forefront of digital transformation in every way, shape and form”.
“I genuinely believe this part of the world is leading the digital revolution, and in particular AI,” Meads said. “The UAE and Saudi both have the vision and the financial means. They operate at a fast pace because they are not held back by lengthy or complex decision-making procedures.”
AI now dominates client discussions
Meads, who oversees Cisco’s operations from Africa to Central Asia, said artificial intelligence sits at the heart of every conversation with customers, regardless of geography.
“Every conversation centres on AI,” he said. “The tipping point for us is whether an organisation has an AI-ready infrastructure. At its crudest form AI is about data, and the more AI proliferates the more data there will be. Data has to reside somewhere and be accessed quickly, which means the underlying infrastructure is critical.”
He explained that Cisco’s role is to build and secure that infrastructure – networking, storage, compute and the “switching fabric” that moves data across data centres and to the edge – while partnering with GPU providers such as Nvidia and AMD.
Three boardroom priorities
Across all the markets he covers, Meads said three technology priorities consistently dominate meetings with chief executives and chief information officers:
- AI-ready infrastructure – ensuring networks and data centres can handle the explosive growth in data and processing needs.
- Future-proofing the workplace – securing and enabling collaboration for employees who now work from anywhere, supported by Cisco’s Webex platform with real-time translation and AI-driven meeting tools.
- Digital resilience – building systems that can withstand global disruptions and cyber incidents, aided by Cisco’s acquisition of security and observability specialist Splunk.
The importance of resilience became obvious after last year’s CrowdStrike outage, he said, when “almost overnight, digital resiliency became a boardroom subject”.
Securing the AI era
Meads highlighted Cisco’s new AI Defence offering, designed to stop employees from inadvertently exposing sensitive information when using generative AI tools such as ChatGPT.
He also pointed to the next frontier: agentic AI, where autonomous digital “agents” perform complex tasks on a user’s behalf – from booking detailed itineraries to managing business processes over days or weeks. “When people start to apply their creativity to how that can help them in their personal and professional lives, it will change the way we work, live and play,” he said.
Talent gap still critical
Despite rapid advances, the long-standing shortage of technology skills continues to worry leaders. Meads cited Cisco’s Networking Academy, launched nearly three decades ago and now training millions worldwide, as a key initiative to close the gap. In the Middle East and Africa alone, hundreds of academies provide everything from basic IT literacy to advanced cybersecurity and data-science training.
“It changes lives,” he said, recalling graduates ranging from rehabilitated offenders in the UK to deaf students in Kenya who have gained industry-recognised qualifications and careers.
Gulf sets the pace
After nearly three decades at Cisco, Meads has watched the region evolve from early e-government projects to today’s AI-driven ambitions. The lesson, he said, is that digital infrastructure – and the willingness to invest in it – remains the foundation of progress.
“You can have all the ideas around use cases and what AI can do for you, but you have to build the right foundation before you deploy at scale,” he said. “That’s where Cisco comes in.”
This article is based on remarks made by David Meads on the AB Majlis podcast, produced by Arabian Business.
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