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Cisco Boosts Investment & Digitization In Saudi Arabia
The tech giant unveiled plans for a new regional headquarters in Riyadh and announced the third phase of its Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) Program.
At LEAP 2024, digital communications technology giant Cisco revealed new strategic initiatives in Saudi Arabia that will grow the company’s long standing presence in the region and reaffirm its commitment to local customers. Based on a Regional Headquarters license issued by the Ministry of Investment in 2023, Cisco unveiled plans for a new regional head office in Riyadh and the beginning of the third phase of its Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) Program.
HE Vice Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Eng. Haitham bin Abdul Rahman Al-Ohali commented: “Technology is a key enabler in achieving the Saudi Vision 2030. Investments of global tech players like Cisco play a crucial role in strengthening our technology landscape, [bringing] the Kingdom forward on its path to a diversified, knowledge-based economy”.
As well as a brand new headquarters, Cisco’s Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) Program will align with the goals of the Saudi Research and Development National Strategy, focusing on Health and Wellness, Sustainable Environment & Affordable Supply of Essential Needs, Energy & Industrial Leadership, and Economies of the Future.
First launched in Saudi Arabia in 2016, the CDA program has supported digitization and helped to develop innovation in sectors including healthcare, education, smart cities, and government digitization. Cisco has now trained over 335,000 people in the Kingdom on cybersecurity, programming, and networking while also collaborating with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Authority for Data and Artificial Intelligence (SDAIA), and Vision 2030 Giga Projects.
Also Read: Fintech In The UAE Is Set To Add $900 Per Capita By 2030
“Today’s announcements reinforce Cisco’s commitment to support the digital ecosystem in Saudi Arabia,” explained Salman Faqeeh, Managing Director, Cisco Saudi Arabia. “I am proud of what we have achieved through our longstanding presence in the Kingdom and via our active programs like CDA and Cisco Networking Academy, and I am looking forward to more milestones. With our technologies spanning every IT and business objective, from networking to security, collaboration, monitoring, application development, and more, Cisco continues to be at the heart of driving digitization together with our customers and partners”.
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Google Releases Veo 2 AI Video Tool To MENA Users
The state-of-the-art video generation model is now available in Gemini, offering realistic AI-generated videos with better physics, motion, and detail.
Starting today, users of Gemini Advanced in the MENA region — and globally — can tap into Veo 2, Google’s next-generation video model.
Originally unveiled in 2024, Veo 2 has now been fully integrated into Gemini, supporting multiple languages including Arabic and English. The rollout now brings Google’s most advanced video AI directly into the hands of everyday users.
Veo 2 builds on the foundations of its predecessor with a more sophisticated understanding of the physical world. It’s designed to produce high-fidelity video content with cinematic detail, realistic motion, and greater visual consistency across a wide range of subjects and styles. Whether recreating natural landscapes, human interactions, or stylized environments, the model is capable of interpreting and translating written prompts into eight-second 720p videos that feel almost handcrafted.
Users can generate content directly through the Gemini platform — either via the web or mobile apps. The experience is pretty straightforward: users enter a text-based prompt, and Veo 2 returns a video in 16:9 landscape format, delivered as an MP4 file. These aren’t just generic clips — they can reflect creative, abstract, or highly specific scenarios, making the tool especially useful for content creators, marketers, or anyone experimenting with visual storytelling.
Also Read: Getting Started With Google Gemini: A Beginner’s Guide
To ensure transparency, each video is embedded with SynthID — a digital watermark developed by Google’s DeepMind. The watermark is invisible to the human eye but persists across editing, compression, and sharing. It identifies the video as AI-generated, addressing concerns around misinformation and media authenticity.
While Veo 2 is still in its early phases of public rollout, the technology is part of a broader push by Google to democratize advanced AI tools. With text-to-image, code generation, and now video creation integrated into Gemini, Google is positioning the platform as a full-spectrum creative assistant.
Access to Veo 2 starts today and will continue expanding in the coming weeks. Interested users can try it out at gemini.google.com or through the Gemini app on Android and iOS.
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