News
GITEX 2025 Opens In Dubai With AI, Quantum And Biotech In Focus
The 45th edition takes place at the Dubai World Trade Centre and Dubai Harbour, and underscores the UAE’s position as a global tech and AI hub.
GITEX Global 2025 opened in Dubai today, drawing technology leaders, policymakers and investors to a city positioning itself at the center of the AI economy.
The 45th edition runs across the Dubai World Trade Centre and Dubai Harbour — the largest GITEX yet — and turns attention to how artificial intelligence, quantum computing and biotechnology are reshaping global industries.
Organizers say this year’s event moves past theory as AI is now well integrated into critical sectors such as healthcare, green data centers and semiconductor assembly lines. Governments and companies are expected to outline how they’ll handle AI governance, data sovereignty and ethics, alongside new pushes in chip manufacturing, cybersecurity and sustainable infrastructure.
The program includes tracks on quantum-powered computation, precision medicine and climate resilience — areas now defining the race for digital competitiveness. Exhibitors are expected to showcase advances in semiconductors, automation systems and energy-efficient data centers, technologies increasingly seen as the backbone of national AI strategies.
The UN Conference on Trade and Development estimates the AI market will approach $4.8 trillion by 2033, intensifying the race to secure computing power and data capacity.
Also Read: UAE Deploys First Fleet Of Driverless Electric Cargo Trucks
For the UAE, GITEX highlights its wider strategy to become a leading AI-driven economy under Vision 2030, anchored by investment in digital infrastructure, biotech and advanced manufacturing. The country’s universities and research centers are also deepening AI and quantum programs to feed a growing demand for skilled talent.
Across the region, governments are backing similar pushes as geopolitical and economic pressures make technological self-reliance a priority. Dubai’s role, through GITEX, is to keep that momentum visible — a meeting ground where global and regional ambitions align.
News
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.
Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.
The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.
Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.
Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget
The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.
Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
RØDE’s New DS3 Studio Arm Is Built For Heavier Creator Setups
Dubai Turns AI On Its Own Civil Service To Measure Productivity
Former Rockstar Director Dismisses GTA 6 Leaks As “Nothing Burger”
Qatar Airways Flies The World’s First Starlink-Equipped 787-9
Spotify Will Now Tell You If Your Favorite Artist Isn’t Real
Instagram Redraws Its Wordmark And The Internet Reads “Instagzam”
Anghami’s New Elite Program Starts With A Three-Decade Catalog
Qatar Is Getting Its First EV Plant, Built To Cope With Gulf Heat
Dubai’s aradus Wants AI To Run The Back Office Of Physical Trade
-
News3 weeks agoInstagram Redraws Its Wordmark And The Internet Reads “Instagzam”
-
News3 weeks agoAnghami’s New Elite Program Starts With A Three-Decade Catalog
-
News3 weeks agoQatar Is Getting Its First EV Plant, Built To Cope With Gulf Heat
-
News3 weeks agoDubai’s aradus Wants AI To Run The Back Office Of Physical Trade