Huawei Cloud and GAPP Forge Strategic Alliance to Accelerate AI-Driven Cloud Solutions in Saudi Arabia
In a significant move to enhance cloud services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Huawei has announced a strategic partnership with GAPP, designating the latter as its official cloud solutions distributor. This collaboration aims to leverage GAPP’s extensive network and local expertise to drive the adoption of AI and cloud technologies across various sectors in the region.
Strategic Partnership Overview
The partnership between Huawei and GAPP is structured to provide GAPP’s established network of sector partners with streamlined access to Huawei Cloud’s comprehensive portfolio. This includes advanced offerings in AI, cloud-native infrastructure, and disaster recovery capabilities, all tailored to meet Saudi Arabia’s regulatory and operational requirements. The collaboration is expected to facilitate a locally anchored distribution model that enhances market growth.
Hugo Hu, CEO of Huawei Cloud Saudi Arabia, emphasized the strategic advantages this partnership brings. He stated that it enables GAPP and local resellers to tap into a high-growth business path in cloud and AI, improve profit margins, and create long-term customer value through recurring services and robust partnerships with government and enterprises.
GAPP’s Established Network and Local Expertise
GAPP has over a decade of experience in the Kingdom, spanning various sectors including financial services, utilities, education, hospitality, and telecommunications. This extensive background equips GAPP with a well-established network of partners and customers, facilitating access to cloud services that are supported by local expertise and dedicated technical support.
Ahmed Alazmah, COO of GAPP, highlighted the importance of this partnership in delivering world-class AI and cloud solutions to Saudi businesses. He noted that local companies require technology that is secure, compliant, and scalable. By integrating Huawei’s advanced tools with GAPP’s local expertise, the partnership aims to simplify the modernization of operations for local businesses.
Technical Infrastructure and Compliance
At the heart of this collaboration is Huawei Cloud’s Riyadh region, which is built on a three-availability-zone (3AZ) architecture. This design ensures high availability and business continuity for critical workloads. Furthermore, it holds the Class C Cloud Service Provider license from the Communications, Space and Technology Commission (CST), the highest certification level for cloud providers in Saudi Arabia. This compliance foundation is crucial for organizations operating under stringent data protection regulations.
Khalid M. Almutawa, General Manager of Entrepreneurship at the National Technology Development Program (NTDP), noted the program’s commitment to accelerating Saudi Arabia’s tech ecosystem. Since its establishment in 2020, NTDP has focused on supporting entrepreneurs, enabling startups, and developing national tech talent through strategic partnerships and innovative financial solutions.
AI Capabilities and Market Reach
The partnership will also enhance Huawei Cloud’s AI capabilities, particularly through its Model-as-a-Service (MaaS) platform. This platform is designed to provide high-reliability, low-latency access to leading open-source models, including the context-supported DeepSeek V4 and the high-performing coding model GLM 5.1. These models are expected to enrich the offerings of secondary distributors and accelerate AI application development in the Kingdom, while also supporting sector-specific and Arabic language use cases.
For instance, Dyna.ai has utilized Huawei Cloud’s AI infrastructure to develop an AI voice agent, an enterprise-level conversational platform tailored for industries such as banking, insurance, and telecommunications. Additionally, an Arabic-language intelligent call center solution built on Huawei Cloud MaaS is gaining traction in the Saudi market, illustrating the partnership’s focus on locally relevant intelligence.
Resilience and Operational Continuity
The collaboration emphasizes resilience and operational continuity. Huawei Cloud’s regional resilience architecture spans four hubs across Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and the UAE (du Tech Cloud). This architecture is designed to ensure high service availability, offering a cross-cloud 99.95% SLA, intra-city failover in seconds, and cross-region disaster recovery in minutes. Such features enable organizations to maintain operations in dynamic environments.
In partnership with NAS Solutions, Huawei Cloud provides disaster recovery (DR) solutions that help businesses across diverse cloud environments maintain resilience and operational continuity. These solutions are designed for fast, intelligent recovery while remaining cost-effective in the event of disasters.
Conclusion
The partnership between Huawei Cloud and GAPP represents a strategic focus on ecosystem depth, ensuring that local enterprises have access to advanced cloud and AI capabilities tailored to meet the specific compliance, language, and operational requirements of the Saudi market. This collaboration not only enhances the technological landscape in Saudi Arabia but also positions the Kingdom as a burgeoning hub for AI and cloud innovation.
Source: www.tahawultech.com
Keep reading for the latest cybersecurity developments, threat intelligence and breaking updates from across the Middle East.
