CEO and Managing Partner for Artefact in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, Rahul Arya.
Doha, Qatar: Qatar’s rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and data infrastructure are placing digital sovereignty and national control of technology at the center of its digital transformation, according to CEO and Managing Partner for Artefact in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, Rahul Arya.
“AI is a technology that actually has a transformational impact. It has become more of a sovereignty topic. Who controls AI probably will control the new economic order that is emerging,” Arya told The Peninsula on the sidelines of the Artefact AI Connect Summit at The Ritz-Carlton Doha, yesterday.
He said that countries were increasingly moving beyond simply adopting technologies developed elsewhere and were instead building their own computing capacity, specialised data environments and sovereign large language models (LLMs).
In Qatar, this effort includes the development of foundational national data infrastructure, with Artefact working alongside the National Planning Council on the country’s National Data Bank.
“At the data level, we're building what is called the National Data Bank. You collect data from all aspects of economy and provide the foundation there,” Arya said.
Beyond daily convenience, experts underscored that the control of artificial intelligence has moved past simple enterprise strategy, becoming an essential component of national identity and economic independence.
At the Artefact AI Connect Summit, high-level keynotes offered sweeping declarations of technical transformation. Amongst these conversations and declarations, a more contemplative consensus began to take shape.
The summit comes as Qatar accelerates investment in the infrastructure, capabilities, and partnerships required for a data- and AI-driven economy. Under Digital Agenda 2030, Qatar aims to generate approximately QR40bn in cumulative economic impact and create 26,000 jobs in the ICT sector by 2030.
The event also discussed Qatar's digital strategy as an exercise in deploying code for the collective but it also underscored a deliberate effort to reclaim human space within an increasingly automated structure.
When asked about the implicit tension between large-scale data aggregation and regulatory requirements, Arya emphasised that strict governance is being installed to ensure that data is handled in a compliant manner.
About how to appease anxieties surrounding resource-heavy data centers and worker displacements, Arya said that transparent governance and keeping humans in the loop are essential to dismantling uncertainty.
“One way to instill confidence in people on AI is to have one level of governance on AI, and really keep humans in the loop with respect to all critical decision making,” Arya said.
He added, “Everyone would look at AI to augment their own ability to do their work, rather than thinking of it as a competitor that is going to replace them."
