Talal AlBakr

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Country Lead

There is unprecedented investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and across the Gulf region. AI is a strategic imperative woven into the fabric of Vision 2030, touching everything from massive giga-projects such as Qiddiya and NEOM to global events including Expo 2030 and the FIFA World Cup 2034.
For Saudi Arabia, the question is no longer whether to invest in AI, but how to convert ambitious pilots into production-ready applications that deliver real-world value.
Across the globe, leaders are discovering that AI deployment is far more complex than anticipated. A now-infamous MIT study found that&nbsp;<a href="https://fortune.com/2025/08/18/mit-report-95-percent-generative-ai-pilots-at-companies-failing-cfo/">95% of generative AI pilots fail to deliver value</a>. We see too many impressive demos that ultimately fail to deliver measurable results.
This is the challenge I want to solve. The path to achieving Vision 2030 runs directly through closing the gap between AI's promise and its practical, reliable deployment.
The Missing Layer: From Data Foundations to Deployed Applications
After spending over 15 years building cloud and infrastructure capabilities in Saudi Arabia, including launching the Kingdom's first public cloud in 2017 and its first hyperscale cloud in 2022, I've learned a fundamental lesson: the most visible investments, like compute and models, aren't always the most strategic.
The reason most AI pilots get stuck in "purgatory" is that they fail to build on the right foundation. Many people are surprised when I tell them that Scale has a nine-figure applications business, building mission-critical AI for governments and the world's largest companies. We succeed where others fail precisely because our deep, obsessive expertise in data provides the foundation that allows us to build applications "that don't break in the real world".
After all, AI is only as good as the data it runs on. You can have the world's best models, but if the data doesn't reflect Arabic language nuances or country-specific frameworks, the AI won't work for mission-critical applications. This is where Scale is unique. We partner with organizations as "forward deployed engineers" &mdash;we understand the customer problem first, and then build the solution. This is the key to true AI sovereignty: not just leasing models, but building a national capability to deploy AI applications that serve your specific priorities.
Why Scale, and Why Now
I chose Scale because its focus on data-first, production-ready systems, not just demos. This is exactly what the market needs.&nbsp;
This focus on real-world results is why our applications business serves major Fortune 500 companies and other global organizations, including Cisco and SAP, and helping top law firms like DLA Piper reduce contract review time from 15 hours to just one hour.
Crucially, Scale is model-agnostic. Instead of vendor lock-in, Scale provides the infrastructure that makes any model&mdash;open or closed-source&mdash;work better for your specific needs. This delivers strategic flexibility, which is the essence of sovereignty.
Uniquely, Scale serves the market locally. My appointment is part of a genuine commitment to build local teams and expertise&mdash;a long-term investment in the Kingdom's ecosystem.
Powering Vision 2030 with Deployed AI Applications
My path here has been a 25-year progression of technology leadership in the Kingdom, helping organizations harness transformational technologies, from networking and infrastructure, to cloud computing, and now artificial intelligence. After 15 years in cloud, moving to AI was a natural evolution. The infrastructure I helped build is the foundation for today&rsquo;s AI transformation. What excites me is bringing tangible, real-world AI applications to market.
Most immediately, my priority is to establish Scale as the partner of choice for the Kingdom's most strategic AI initiatives. This means building tangible applications that enhance tourism and citizen satisfaction, improve healthcare and education, and optimize operations and security for giga-projects and global events.
In the years ahead, I envision a significant Scale presence, having enabled hundreds of unique AI solutions and built a substantial ecosystem of local data and AI experts. The ultimate measure of success will be whether Saudi Arabia achieves its goal of becoming a global AI leader. A world-class applications infrastructure, built on a solid foundation of data, is how we get there.
An Invitation to Collaborate
Scale is serious about the Saudi market, but this mission requires collaboration across government, enterprise, and academia. We are looking for partners who understand that building reliable AI for the world's most important decisions aligns perfectly with the Kingdom's ambition.&nbsp;
The foundation for Saudi Arabia's AI future is being built today. Let's build it together.
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Why I Joined Scale: Powering Saudi Arabia’s AI Future Through Real-World Applications

Talal AlBakr

Why I Joined Scale: Building the Applications for Saudi Arabia's AI Future