LEAP 2026 and Beyond: Driving the Next Wave of AI Across the Middle East
LEAP 2026 in Riyadh offered a clear signal about the direction of artificial intelligence across the Middle East: the region is moving beyond AI ambition and rapidly entering an era of execution.
With more than 200,000 investors, policymakers, technology leaders, entrepreneurs and innovators attending the event, the scale of interest in AI was impossible to miss. From established technology companies to emerging startups, organizations across the region are increasingly focused on turning AI investments into practical applications, measurable business outcomes and long-term economic value.
For AMD, LEAP 2026 highlighted the company’s growing role in helping governments, enterprises and technology partners build the infrastructure and capabilities needed to support this transformation.
The LEAP Middle East is emerging as an important global center for AI innovation. Countries across the region are investing not only in computing infrastructure, but also in sovereign AI capabilities, enterprise adoption, digital services, developer ecosystems and local talent.
AMD LEAP is working across these areas with a broad portfolio spanning CPUs, GPUs, adaptive and embedded computing, networking and open software technologies.
The Middle East Moves From AI Ambition to Execution
During LEAP 2026, AMD Chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su joined Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology, His Excellency Abdullah bin Amer Alswaha, and HUMAIN CEO Tareq Amin on the main stage.
Their appearance underscored the growing importance of AI to Saudi Arabia and the wider region.
The LEAP conversation around AI is also changing. Governments and businesses are no longer focused solely on how much computing infrastructure they can build. Increasingly, they are asking how that infrastructure can generate measurable returns.
That means turning AI investments into higher productivity, improved efficiency, new revenue opportunities and stronger competitive advantages. It also means developing local talent, protecting sensitive data and creating sovereign AI capabilities that can support national priorities.
These challenges are shaping the next phase of AI development across the Middle East.
Turning AI Infrastructure Into Economic Impact
One of the LEAP most significant developments showcased at LEAP involved AMD, Cisco and HUMAIN.
The companies announced that production AI infrastructure powered by AMD Instinct MI355X GPUs, AMD EPYC CPUs and Cisco networking is now live and serving customers in Saudi Arabia.
The collaboration also includes plans to deploy up to 250 megawatts of additional AI infrastructure beginning in 2027, with the joint venture remaining on track to reach up to 1 gigawatt by 2030.
However, installed computing capacity is only one measure of AI progress.
The greater objective is to transform that infrastructure into innovation, productivity and economic opportunity. For Saudi Arabia, the effort aligns closely with the ambitions of Vision 2030, combining advanced digital infrastructure with local expertise, entrepreneurship and opportunities for developers and enterprises.
Building an Open Developer Ecosystem
Infrastructure alone cannot create an AI economy. Skilled developers, engineers and entrepreneurs are equally important.
To help address this need, AMD, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and the Digital Cooperation Organization announced an open developer ecosystem initiative.
The LEAP program is designed to provide developers, startups and software engineers with access to open software tools, training, technical resources and responsible AI governance capabilities.
This approach reflects an increasingly important principle in AI development: compute and talent must grow together.
A country’s AI leadership cannot be measured simply by the amount of computing power installed in its data centers. It must also be measured by what its businesses, developers and researchers can create with that infrastructure.
For the Middle East, developing a strong local AI ecosystem could help ensure that investments in infrastructure generate benefits well beyond the data center itself.
Helping Enterprises Turn AI Into Business Value
While governments and technology companies are investing heavily in AI infrastructure, many enterprises are still determining where AI can deliver the greatest impact.
Business leaders often face the same questions: Which workloads should be prioritized? Where should organizations begin? How can AI projects demonstrate measurable returns before being scaled across the enterprise?
The LEAP HUMAIN AI Application Platform, also known as AI-in-a-Box, is designed to help address these challenges for Saudi businesses.
The LEAP platform combines AMD Instinct GPUs and AMD EPYC CPUs with HUMAIN capabilities, providing enterprises with a more accessible environment for testing workloads, deploying AI applications and expanding adoption without immediately requiring hyperscale infrastructure.
This creates a bridge between national-scale AI infrastructure and practical enterprise deployment.
For many organizations, successful AI adoption does not begin with the largest possible system. It starts with a specific business problem, a clearly defined workload and a measurable outcome. Once the value is demonstrated, organizations can expand their AI deployments.
The ultimate goal is to move from experimentation to measurable return on investment and sustained business value.
AI Expansion Across the Gulf
The transformation is not limited to Saudi Arabia.
Across the Gulf region, AMD is working with technology companies and infrastructure providers to expand AI capabilities across cloud, telecom, enterprise and edge environments.
In the United Arab Emirates, AMD and e& UAE are collaborating on AI-ready cloud, telecommunications, enterprise and edge infrastructure. AMD is also working with Core42, a G42 company, to advance AI, machine learning and confidential computing for cloud environments.
In Qatar, AMD and MEEZA are collaborating to accelerate AI adoption, including exploring AMD technologies within MEEZA data centers to address growing demand for accelerated computing and advanced AI models.
Together, these initiatives reflect a broader regional trend: AI is moving beyond centralized infrastructure and into enterprise applications, telecommunications networks, cloud platforms and edge systems.
Flexibility Is Becoming Critical for AI Deployment
As AI adoption expands, organizations increasingly need flexibility in how and where they deploy computing resources.
Different workloads have different requirements for performance, security, latency, cost and data control. Some applications may benefit from centralized cloud infrastructure, while others require computing closer to users, devices or sensitive data.
AMD’s broad portfolio allows the company to address these requirements across national AI infrastructure, enterprise data centers, telecom networks, edge environments and intelligent devices.
This flexibility is becoming increasingly important as organizations move from AI experimentation toward widespread production deployment.
An Open Approach to the Future of AI
Another key element of AMD’s strategy is its emphasis on openness.
The company believes customers should have choice in how they build and deploy AI systems. Developers should have access to open software tools, governments should maintain flexibility and control, and technology partners should be able to contribute their own innovations to the broader ecosystem.
An open approach can help organizations avoid being locked into a single technology stack while giving developers more opportunities to innovate.
For the Middle East, this philosophy could be particularly important as governments seek to establish sovereign AI capabilities while remaining connected to a global technology ecosystem.
From LEAP 2026 to the Next Stage of AI Growth
LEAP 2026 demonstrated that the Middle East is entering a new phase of AI development.
The region is investing in large-scale computing infrastructure, but its ambitions extend far beyond hardware. Governments, enterprises and technology partners are building developer ecosystems, cultivating talent, modernizing cloud and edge infrastructure and looking for practical ways to translate AI into economic value.
AMD’s growing presence across the region reflects this broader transformation.
The next measure of success will not simply be how much AI infrastructure is deployed. It will be what that infrastructure enables: new businesses, more productive enterprises, stronger digital economies, advanced public services and locally developed AI capabilities.
The transition from AI ambition to AI execution is already underway. As the Middle East continues building its AI future, partnerships among governments, enterprises, developers and technology providers will be critical to turning investment into lasting innovation and measurable impact.
For AMD, the commitment extends beyond LEAP 2026. The company aims to work alongside customers and partners across the region to help transform AI ambition into practical applications, stronger businesses and long-term economic value.
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