Akamai is bringing its World Tour to Dubai on 1 October 2025, naming the city its flagship Middle East stop. The one-day event at TODA, The Theatre of Digital Art, will gather UAE decision-makers, enterprise IT leaders, and Akamai experts to talk about AI, cybersecurity, cloud, and data sovereignty. H.E. Dr Mohamed Al Kuwaiti, Head of Cyber Security at the UAE Cybersecurity Council, is set to deliver the opening keynote.
What the Dubai stop is about
The agenda focuses on how AI, security and cloud intersect for real projects. It aims to help teams build secure and scalable AI apps that respect local rules.
- Date and venue: 1 October 2025, TODA (Theatre of Digital Art), Dubai.
- Themes: AI security, data sovereignty, compliance, and cloud scale at the edge.
- Who is it for: Government, telco, finance, and enterprise IT leaders across the GCC.
- Format: Keynotes, panels, and case studies from regional teams.
For readers mapping this to ongoing UAE moves, see our coverage on du’s National Hypercloud and sovereign cloud push, which align with the same themes of control and compliance in the UAE.
Why this matters for the UAE right now
The UAE is pushing secure digital services and AI adoption under Vision 2031. Akamai says AI could add up to US$320B to Middle Eastern economies by 2030—but threats scale too. The event sets out practical steps to unlock value while staying compliant.
- UAE context: stronger national resilience and safer AI rollouts are top priorities.
- Data stays local: sessions cover governance and sovereignty, which matter for regulated sectors here.
- Local infrastructure: expect references to Akamai’s Dubai scrubbing centre for closer-to-user protection.
If your team is building AI services on local networks, our guides on du 5G+ and 64T64R 5G-Advanced show how last-mile latency is improving for UAE users—useful context when planning edge-heavy apps.
Who’s speaking and what they’ll cover
Speakers include national cyber leaders and Akamai execs, with sessions on resilient AI, secure growth, and cloud sovereignty.
- Opening address: H.E. Dr Mohamed Al Kuwaiti on national resilience in AI and cybersecurity.
- Akamai CEO Dr Tom Leighton on secure foundations for growth.
- du’s Chief ICT Officer Jasim Al Awadi on cloud and AI sovereignty in a digital economy.
For background on du’s wider cloud and AI work—sovereign hypercloud, Arabic telecom AI, and talent pipelines—see our recent reporting.
What attendees can expect to take back
Akamai says the day is built to deliver usable guidance: from real-time protection and edge scale to AI governance frameworks that fit regional rules.
- Best practices for protecting AI apps end-to-end
- Patterns for meeting local compliance requirements
- Case studies from the region and direct access to experts
Networking is a big part of the programme, with sessions that connect government, telcos and enterprises—handy for teams planning AI pilots or cloud migrations in Q4. For more context on sector shifts, our explainer on UAE banks moving beyond SMS OTPs breaks down how security models are changing in finance.
Why Dubai—and why now
Dubai sits at the centre of regional digital transformation. That is why it’s Akamai’s flagship Middle East stop this year, with a focus on secure, trusted infrastructure aligned to UAE Vision 2031.
- Strong pull from public sector modernisation
- Mature telco networks and new 5G+ rollouts
- A growing AI research and skills base (see Abu Dhabi’s NVIDIA-backed lab)
Expect a pragmatic tone. The focus is on secure growth, not hype.
