This white paper emphasizes the critical role that modern data architectures play in enabling scalable, efficient, and enterprise-wide AI adoption.

Across the Middle East region, governments and enterprises are rapidly investing in AI to drive economic diversification, public sector transformation, and private sector innovation. From Abu Dhabi’s $3.5 billion push to become the world’s first AI-native government by 2027 to Saudi Arabia’s $100 billion Project Transcendence, regional leaders are setting a bold agenda.

This white paper, Enterprise AI Readiness in the Middle East: Bridging the Infrastructure Gap, developed by MIT Sloan Management Review Middle East in collaboration with Pure Storage, explores the region’s current state of AI infrastructure readiness. It emphasizes the critical role that modern data architectures play in enabling scalable, efficient, and enterprise-wide AI adoption—and highlights the urgency for organizations to move beyond ambition toward operational execution.