I attended this year’s Dubai FinTech Summit on a bit of an exploration mission as we start to expand further out into the region. I’m not new to what goes on in the UAE, but there is still a lot for me to learn about Dubai, the UAE and other countries in MENA and this seemed like a great opportunity to have lots of interesting discussions that will help me shape our next steps.
About the event
The Dubai FinTech Summit 2025, held on May 12–13 at Madinat Jumeirah, served as a global nexus for financial innovation, drawing over 9000 industry leaders, 1000 investors, and participants from 120 countries. Organized by the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), the summit featured more than 300 speakers across multiple stages. The event showcased cutting-edge advancements in areas such as AI, blockchain, digital payments, and sustainable finance, aligning with Dubai’s strategic goal to become one of the top four global financial hubs by 2033 as outlined in the Dubai Economic Agenda D33.
Claranet made the decision to be a sponsor of the event, so that we’d have opportunity to have discussions with potential customers and start to establish the brand in the region.
Exhibiting and all those great conversations
This summit was certainly not the first time I have been on the exhibition stand, although as a CTO it’s not something I’ve done for a number of years. Unlike other large technology events I have attended over the years, the percentage of senior executives (partners, VPs and C-level) amongst the 9000 attendees was pretty high. Claranet had a stand in the exhibition hall and there were plenty of people who wanted to talk to us and understand what it is that Claranet do. While there were lots of technology providers and government representation there, we certainly stood out as the only managed service provider of our type, size and calibre.
There were three technology areas of the day that we wanted to focus on: Cloud, Cybersecurity and Data & AI. Given our existing knowledge of the FinTech industry and of the local market is was no surprise that these topics really hit the mark with the people there, although there were one or two surprises.
Cloud
- There is still a large demand and large investment into building new datacenters. Facilities for both compute and for AI were needed and were being built as fast as humanly possible, not just in the UAE but in countries around there world wherever UAE-based organisations had investments.
- The mix public cloud deployments is very different in this part of the world. The mix between AWS (deployed in UAE in 2022) and Azure (deployed in 2019) still exists with start-ups mostly deployed on AWS and larger organisations deployed on Azure, however even for those deployed on AWS the sentiment is not great and I think that Microsoft or other players may take over some of this market share. Unlike other regions both AliCloud (deployed in UAE in 2016) and Huawei Cloud (deploy in Saudi Arabia in 2023) are playing a significant role in UAE and the wider middle east. Having some experience with AliCloud but little with Huawei Cloud, this is something I’m taking away to explorer a bit further.
- FinOps is a virtually unknown topic. I suspect this comes from the economy of the region moving at rapid pace and with more readily available capital investments. I suspect this may change over the coming years, especially as today’s start-ups grow into larger companies.
Data & AI
- Slightly biased by the audience but the data conversations of the day were all about transactional, realtime data management and building platforms that support that.
- There was a big presence on Web3, including the tools, use-cases and conversations about processing and securing blockchain transactions. This is not surprising for the region, but when compared to Europe where this topic has almost vanished, it was surprising just how big the topic remains here. I think the use-cases discussed will be something I come back to in the near future for all our customers across the globe.
- Data governance still an issue for everyone. I think this is a consistent message for every organisation around the globe, that data production is increasing, data retention is increasing and everyone is unclear on what to really do with the problem. Data management, data linage, data compliance are all stumbling blocks to AI adoption and value creation.
- Data sovereignty is super important, especially in UAE and some other middle eastern countries but increasingly in most other countries around the globe. This is driving development of specific sovereign AI models as well as the increase demand of in-country data centers for both compute and AI.
- Most organisations I spoke with are on a good path with the AI adoption and understand their use-cases however the main AI challenges were model selection and testing. There are both tools and services emerging to assist with this problem and I will certainly be doing a lot more in this area.
- There were lots of great AI use-cases including: AI agents, call center automation, fraud detection and risk management.
Cybersecurity
- It wasn’t until I was doing a bit more research ahead of the event that I realised quite how big of a topic Cybersecurity was going to be for this market in this region. After my usual “this is what Claranet do .. " overview, Cybersecurity was the most asked for topic, to understand Claranet’s expertise - which is great.
- The security statistics aren’t great. >70% of FinTechs in UAE don’t have the tools to detect attacks, Ransomware in the UAE increased 34% in 2024 - costing 10s of millions of dollars and the UAE amongst the most targeted countries in the world for Malware. When combined with the lack of detection and the increase in randsomeware this indicates that a lot of help and support is required by experts here.
- Compliance is a big big topic including PCI:DSS, ISO certifications and DFIC licensing. This has always been a challenging topic but large amounts of data as well as the rise in AI and Web3 has made this a lot more complicated.
The panel discussion
On the second day of the event I had the opportunity to sit on a panel with the topic “Harnessing Digital Transformation to Boost Business Agility and Growth”. It was a wide ranging topic and given the professional diversity of the other panelist I was excited to see what insights would be shared.
Here is what came up:
What digital transformation means
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My view of digital transformation is one of two halves - the technology and the cultural change. There is still a lot of ground to me made on both of those topics, with new technologies always appearing and still a lot of support required to build organisations that are adaptable to to constant pace of change. Business Agility and Growth is inevitable when the technology we use today won’t be the same tech we use in 5 years time (maybe even 1 years time, given AI adoption)
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A very good point was made that the focus at the C-level has now moved away from just investing in new technologies but that now all the discussions are about outcomes, values and return on investment. I think that with the increasing use of AI that being clear about the business outcomes really will be the most important discussion. Do you know your business outcomes, do you know how to measure them?
Data
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Everyone on the panel agreed with the importance of data and data products. Given the location of the event, it was no surprise that it took all of about 20 seconds into question for some to utter the old Clive Humby phrase “data is the new oil”. Thankfully, I was prepared with the Mikko Hyppönen quip of “data is the new uranium” and the corresponding explanation about the value of data, but also the risk that comes with easily amassing tonnes of it without proper controls and governance. That could be financial risk, regularity risk or security risk if the data gets stolen.
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I also took the opportunity to explain a good use-case I had seen with a customer utilising their data. This was a construction company with large volumes of project data and project statistics which they legally have to keep for decades. They packaged it, built machine learning models and APIs on top of it and packaged it up such they could sell it as a product in their industry to predict how successful the next project is going to be and any associated risks. While not in the FinTech industry that the audience was familiar with, the use-case is not too dissimilar to how financial derivatives work, taking existing assets and re-packaging them to provide additional value.
AI
- Like every talk or event since 2023, AI was going to be a big conversation point. On this panel we discussed the use-cases for FinTech and InsurTech (like fraud detection and claims management) as well as the importance of sovereignty. UAE is unique in this regard, in that they are making real progress in AI sovereignty with the Institute of Foundation Models and new models like Falcon 3 based directly in the UAE. I feel like other countries around the world should be looking at this and perhaps speed up their own progress.
- AI ethics and compliance, was another important topic mentioned. There was a lot of be said on this and certainly this could have been a panel on it’s own, but I feel like there is certainly a lot of be done in terms of the speed of laws keeping up with the pace of AI development. The EU is making a lot of progress but perhaps the unique legal framework of the UAE may have some advantages here too.
Dubai
- Well there is lots of innovation happening here and lots of business to be done. A couldn’t get over the sense of speed, the sense of innovation and the feeling that anything is possible. Every major tech firm has presence here the opportunities are huge - I left every day excited for the next.
- Business operating licensing matters, both in the UAE free zones, the UAE main land and other countries. There were lots of organisations with these challenges and it’s something to not take for granted as straightforward admin.
- Local presence matters, but so does a global presence. People want to know you operating in Dubai or UAE (and have an office there) but then also want to talk about business opportunities in other countries. You need to be global but feel local and be consistent at both levels.
What’s next
- There are some lessons learnt from Europe to bring here to the UAE (e.g. Cybersecurity and FinOps) and lessons learnt in the UAE to bring back to Europe (e.g. web3 and AI use-cases).
- Expand partnerships (technical and delivery)
- Expand knowledge of each country (cloud availability and regional compliance requirements)
- Have lots more customer conversations and maybe a few more events - so see you there :)