NTT DATA Launches AI Factory Lab in Riyadh to Accelerate Enterprise AI Adoption

Abdelrahman Amr

Last updated 2-09-2026

4 min

NTT DATA will open an AI Factory Lab in Riyadh in September 2026.

It gives organisations a hands-on space to test AI before "full deployment".

The lab will cover generative and agentic AI, plus cybersecurity and sector-specific uses.

Cisco and NVIDIA will provide enterprise infrastructure, with security and governance built in.

It supports Vision 2030 and could bridge pilots to "measurable results" across the region.

NTT DATA is preparing to open an AI Factory Lab in Riyadh in September 2026, setting up a space where organisations can actually test AI ideas before they spend big on full deployment. The plan is fairly straightforward, but not small: give public and private sector players a hands-on environment to validate enterprise AI use cases, measure business value and get workloads ready for secure production using technologies from Cisco, NVIDIA and other partners.

It sounds a bit dry on paper, but this is where things often get stuck. Plenty of companies like the idea of AI, yet moving from pilot mode to something running safely inside a real business is another kettle of fish. Hani Nofal, Executive Head of Infrastructure Solutions for Middle East and Africa at NTT DATA, said many organisations are still interested in AI but need a clearer route from experimentation to measurable results. The Riyadh facility is meant to close that gap by bringing together technical know-how, infrastructure and partner technologies in one controlled setup.

The lab will host executive briefings, strategy workshops and practical demos across generative AI, agentic AI, cybersecurity, networking, software development and sector-specific applications. That includes use cases around employee productivity, customer experience and intelligent operations, as well as business processes tailored to particular industries. And believe it or not, that industry-specific angle may be the bit that matters most, because a flashy demo is one thing, while solving an actual operations bottleneck is where the rubber meets the road.

One of the main environments inside the lab will be the Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA. In simple terms, it is designed to show how enterprises can build, deploy, secure, govern and scale AI workloads on enterprise-grade infrastructure. Cisco is set to provide networking, cybersecurity, observability and collaboration technologies, while NVIDIA will supply accelerated computing and AI software for workloads such as generative AI, agentic AI, computer vision and digital twins.

Security and governance are not being treated as something to bolt on later, which feels spot on. As more businesses connect AI systems to sensitive internal data and business-critical workflows, the risks get real quite fast. The Riyadh lab is supposed to let organisations test different AI architectures, refine how they want to deploy them and avoid making costly infrastructure decisions blindly. Cisco has described the facility as a validated environment where customers can test and prove AI strategies while keeping tighter control over security and governance.

There is also a strong focus on agentic AI, which is becoming one of the more talked-about shifts in the enterprise market. Rather than using AI just to generate text or answer prompts, companies are now looking at systems that can handle multi-step tasks, automate workflows, support decisions and pull more value from company data. On the flip side, the more these systems start doing, the more businesses need visibility, guardrails and resilient infrastructure. I reckon that is where labs like this can be genuinely useful, not just shiny showrooms.

The move also fits into Saudi Arabia’s broader push to expand AI adoption across government and industry under Vision 2030. Riyadh is already building up as a hub for AI infrastructure, cloud investment, research centres and enterprise technology projects. This facility adds another layer by giving organisations a place to test and shape applications on top of that growing stack. For readers at Arageek who follow how the region’s startup and tech ecosystems are maturing, this part stands out; I’ve seen too many founders get chuffed to bits by new AI tools, only to hit a wall when governance, data readiness or cybersecurity enters the room.

NTT DATA says the lab will serve not only Saudi Arabia but the wider Middle East and Africa as well. The company is pitching it as part of a broader strategy around consulting, infrastructure, technology services and industry-focused solutions, rather than a narrow play around individual AI models. That full-stack approach may save enterprises a lot of faff, because in practice the biggest barriers are often not the models themselves, but the surrounding mess of data, networking, compliance and operational integration.

In the end, the real test will be what comes after the demos. The important question is not simply whether the lab can showcase powerful systems, but whether enterprise pilots turn into live deployments with measurable gains in productivity, security or operational efficiency. If that happens, Riyadh’s new AI Factory Lab could become a useful bridge between Saudi Arabia’s fast-growing AI ambition and the harder, messier work of real adoption across the region.

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