AWS and UiPath have separately made announcements about their investments in Saudi Arabia to help develop local expertise, boost Saudi women’s technical capabilities and launch a Saudi School of Automation.
AWS has announced its plans to launch an AWS infrastructure Region in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2026.
The new AWS Region will target to give developers, startups, entrepreneurs, enterprises, along with healthcare, education, gaming and nonprofit organizations, greater choice for running their applications. This can help serve end users from data centers located in the country, ensuring that customers who want to keep their content in-country can do so.
As part of this long-term commitment, AWS is planning to invest more than $5.3bn in Saudi Arabia.
“Today’s announcement supports the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s digital transformation with the highest levels of security and resilience available on AWS cloud infrastructure, helping serve fast-growing demand for cloud services across the Middle East,” said Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of infrastructure services at AWS.
“The new AWS Region will enable organizations to unlock the full potential of the cloud build with AWS technologies like compute, storage, databases, analytics and artificial intelligence, transforming the way businesses and institutions serve their customers.”
Upon its launch, the new AWS Region will consist of three Availability Zones, adding to the 105 existing Availability Zones across 33 geographic regions globally.
AWS is also planning to launch 18 more Availability Zones and six more AWS Regions in Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and the AWS European Sovereign Cloud.
To support the growth in cloud adoption across Saudi Arabia, AWS will continue to scale its training programs and help accelerate Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 goal of empowering women to increase participation in the workforce.
To support this goal, AWS is launching a new upskilling program, “AWS Saudi Arabia Women’s Skills Initiative,” in partnership with Skillsoft Global Knowledge, which will train up to 4,000 women helping them jumpstart a career in cloud computing.
UiPath announces new office location in Riyadh and first Saudi School of Automation
UiPath has announced its commitment to support digital transformation and workforce upskilling via AI and automation technologies in Saudi Arabia, with new investments in the Kingdom.
Announced at the LEAP 2024 event in the Saudi capital Riyadh, UiPath shared the news about opening a Saudi Arabia office and launching a Saudi School of Automation.
The new office location in the King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh is part of a strategic investment in the country, including technology and workforce. As part of these efforts, UiPath is committing that 90 percent of hires at the office will be Saudi Arabian nationals.
Launching its first Saudi School of Automation, in partnership with the Saudi Digital Academy, UiPath also announced its new program designed to accelerate the advancement of the Kingdom’s future workforce with training on AI and automation.
The three-month customized, intensive curriculum, created and facilitated by UiPath, will build automation developer skills for an initial cohort of young Saudi professionals.
Rob Enslin, CEO of UiPath, said: “AI and automation can help unlock our nearly limitless potential as humans. UiPath strives to accelerate human achievement by creating the tools that allow people to see new possibilities, think bigger and achieve more – for better workplaces and a better world.
“Automation isn’t just about efficiency, it’s about opening resources to tackle head on some of society’s biggest challenges like climate change, healthcare access and sustainability.”
Ibrahem AlNasser, deputy minister for future jobs and capabilities at the Saudi Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, said: “We are proud to partner with UiPath to develop the next generation of Saudi talent. This academy will provide us with a pipeline of highly skilled individuals who are ready to contribute to our success.”
Expanding its partnership with Google Cloud, UiPath recently announced its availability on Google Cloud Marketplace, making it easier for users to purchase the UiPath Business Automation Platform and reliably deploy and scale their automation initiatives on Google Cloud infrastructure.
These recent announcements follow the company’s third quarter fiscal 2024 financial results which demonstrated the strategic role enterprise automation plays in digital transformation as Q3 saw “ARR growing 24 percent year-on-year to $1.378bn, driven by the team’s execution and transformational results,” Rob Enslin, UiPath CEO, said.
