Intel accelerating AI adoption and innovation across sectors

Intel's story has always been written in silicon, but today, it's being told through collaboration and impact. Once defined by the chips it built, Intel has evolved into a catalyst for transformation, orchestrating an entire ecosystem where distributors, partners and customers unite to shape how nations and businesses think, learn, and grow in the age of artificial intelligence. Across the Middle East, as governments and enterprises race to modernise, Intel's role spans the full technology spectrum: from cloud infrastructure to edge computing to consumer devices, ensuring AI is accessible everywhere.

GITEX 2025 marked a turning point exceeding all expectations by showcasing not just technology but tangible outcomes born from ecosystem partnerships. From sovereign AI platforms in the UAE to smart-city systems, Intel's vision of AI is taking shape through comprehensive collaboration.

Delivering scalable, secure AI

The UAE's commitment to data sovereignty and local AI capabilities has found a powerful ally in Intel's technology ecosystem. In partnership with AIREV, Intel is enabling the OnDemand platform, designed to integrate agentic AI into enterprise and government workflows, with Intel's portfolio of Xeon processors and Gaudi-class accelerators. Together, the hardware and software deliver scalable, secure AI capable of everything from latency-sensitive inference to large-model training.

“By combining Intel’s leadership in compute with AIREV’s innovative OnDemand platform, we are enabling enterprises and governments to harness the full power of AI with better performance, flexibility, and TCO,” said Dermot J. Hargaden, Vice President, Sales and Marketing Group, and General Manager for EMEA, Intel Corporation.

Building on this vision, e& enterprise, the digital transformation arm of global technology group e&, unveiled a first-of-its-kind sovereign inference AI platform at Gitex Global 2025. Developed in strategic collaboration with Intel and Dell Technologies, the platform delivers secure, high-performance AI inference capabilities that comply fully with data residency and sovereignty requirements while maintaining optimised performance at scale.

Taking AI adoption from concept to reality, Intel and e& enterprise also launched SLM-in-a-Box, a ready-to-use small-language-model solution available in the AWS Marketplace. Designed for government, healthcare, finance, and critical infrastructure, it provides a practical pathway from pilot to production with cost-effective inference powered by Intel Xeon. It’s AI adoption made pragmatic, sovereign-ready, and industrial-scale.

The hybrid, in-country inference stack is powered by Intel’s Gaudi 3 AI-optimised hardware with inference endpoint software. This real-time, high-volume inference platform is built for sectors such as citizen services, healthcare, financial services, energy, and telecom, offering unmatched speed, security, and scalability.

“Enterprises and public agencies require AI solutions that not only perform in production but also operate within national boundaries,” said Khalid Murshed, Chief Executive Officer, e& enterprise. “Through our collaboration with Intel and Dell, e& enterprise is delivering an on-shore inference platform that ensures data remains in-country, provides real-time performance, and adheres to stringent residency and regulatory frameworks.”

AI doesn't just live in the cloud—it's increasingly moving to the edge, embedded in networks and devices where decisions need to happen in real time. Intel's collaboration with e& UAE (the telecom arm) is establishing an AI Centre of Excellence and focused on developing edge-AI solutions together that bring intelligence closer to the user, right at the network edge.

Powered by Intel Core Ultra, Xeon, and GPU platforms, these edge-AI solutions deliver lower latency, real-time insights, and infrastructure ready to evolve with emerging technologies. Whether it's enhanced customer experience, network optimization, or autonomous systems, the future of AI is distributed, and Intel is helping build that distributed intelligence across the region. 

AI for societal good

In Pakistan, Intel is helping drive a different kind of transformation — one focused on resilience and sustainability. In collaboration with local innovators Disrupt-X and DynaSys Networks, Intel is supporting national-scale programmes for flood monitoring, smart water metering, and smart city systems. These initiatives represent more than technological upgrades, they are a tangible blueprint for how AI can underpin safer, smarter, and more sustainable urban futures. From protecting communities against climate-related disasters to optimising resource consumption, Intel's partnerships demonstrate that AI can be a force for societal good, addressing the region's most pressing challenges.

Intel's commitment to the region extends beyond technology partnerships to fostering local innovation and manufacturing capabilities. During Gitex Global, Intel signed an MoU with Celebal Technologies to help establish the UAE as a global centre of excellence for intelligent enterprise systems. The partnership focuses on co-engineering Agentic AI frameworks that enable enterprises to achieve autonomous decision-making, operational scalability, and measurable return on investment across cloud, hybrid, and on-premises environments. 

By combining Intel's multi-architecture compute platforms with Celebal Technologies' capabilities in AI engineering and SAP, the collaboration will deliver sector-specific frameworks for BFSI, energy, healthcare, telecommunications, and public sector enterprises. 

Further strengthening local capabilities, Intel has joined hands with Dubai-based Kerno Enterprises to develop high-performance AI, universal, and edge computing solutions. Technology production will take place at Kerno's manufacturing facility in Dubai Silicon Oasis—the first of its kind in the UAE and the Gulf region, with the capacity to deliver 60,000 servers per year locally. 

“This collaboration with Kerno underscores Intel's focus on advancing local innovation through high-efficiency, scalable computing solutions,” said Intel’s Khalifa. “Through this cooperation, we're redefining how technology ecosystems evolve in the Middle East.”

Still, underpinning all of this is Intel’s broader enterprise AI strategy. At its Vision 2024 event, the company made its mission clear: to deliver open, scalable systems for enterprise generative AI, whether for training, inference, or edge deployment powered by Xeon, and Core Ultra hardware, open software, and ecosystem partnerships.

AI as a service

Intel is deliberately working with indigenous players, governments, regulated industries, and infrastructure providers to deploy AI not as a luxury, but as a service and an everyday tool for operational and strategic advantage. Whether empowering sovereign AI platforms in the UAE, enabling smart cities, or establishing local manufacturing capabilities, Intel and its ecosystem partners are delivering localized, compliant, high-performance AI solutions backed by global scale and deep regional commitment.

Through this full-spectrum approach, connecting people, platforms, and possibilities, Intel is not just keeping pace with the future but actively defining it alongside the region's innovators and leaders.