News

MENA Digital Economy Set To Hit $400 Billion By 2030

Education and health technology sectors alone are forecast to reach a combined market size of $20 billion by 2030.

Published

4 years ago

October 6, 2022

mena digital economy set to hit $400 billion by 2030

Although COVID-19 sent shockwaves through brick-and-mortar retail businesses and decimated the travel industry, the world’s digital economy actually reaped enormous benefits from lockdowns and reduced movement.

According to newly released data, the digital economies of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries are now estimated to be worth an incredible $400 billion by 2030.

To reach the enormous milestone in under ten years, the entire region’s economy will need to undergo rapid transformation. Sectors including food, travel and bill payment have declined in recent years. However, health and education technology appear to be booming — though predictably, online retail is driving much of the growth, increasing at a rate of 20% per year alone.

According to the report, Generation Z will fuel a great deal of the decade’s growth, and the expansion of EdTech services will require significant skill development, with schools and higher education institutions adding new technology-focused courses to their curriculums.

Also Read: Saudi Arabia To Send First Female Astronaut Into Space By 2023

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have already significantly contributed to the region’s global digital expansion. Future growth is anticipated to be more evenly spread among the MENA countries, as the two leading nations currently account for half of the area’s total digital economy.

According to the new survey, the rest of the MENA region is improving in its rate of digital adoption, with the time spent on digital channels now nearing 8 hours per day, which is a figure similar to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

News

Microsoft Plans $10 Billion-Plus Gulf Expansion Despite Iran Conflict

Security is shaping Microsoft’s approach, from resilience work with governments to what it will say about how the money splits by country.

Published

4 days ago

September 24, 2026

Nour Nasir

Microsoft

Microsoft is planning more than $10 billion of investment across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through 2030, Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told Reuters, calling the spending schedule aggressive. The Iranian conflict that began on February 28 has not persuaded the company to scale back.

“We’re sustaining all the investments we planned to make before this conflict started, and we are in fact adding to them,” Smith said. The $10 billion-plus total does not, however, show how large those additions are.

The investment, which Smith described as part of Microsoft’s continued infrastructure expansion, is aimed at cloud and AI infrastructure and at the company’s growing regional operations. Microsoft also intends to put more than $400 million into subsea and terrestrial connectivity across the Middle East by 2030.

The spending fits the region’s own ambitions too. Gulf governments have been investing heavily in AI infrastructure as part of a push to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas and turn themselves into global technology hubs. Major cloud and AI providers have been drawn in part by the land and relatively low-cost energy on offer.

Microsoft is widening its partnerships with regional AI companies, though not on identical terms. In 2024, it invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a minority stake, and Smith currently sits on G42’s board. Saudi Arabia’s Humain and Qatar’s Qai are working with Microsoft on selected priority areas, but Smith said the company does not plan to make capital investments in either.

Also Read: Egypt’s Mobile Wallets Are Booming, But Cash Still Has Power

The conflict has added another strand to Microsoft’s work in the region. Since it began, Smith said, the company has supported regional partners with digital resilience assessments, and it is now working with Gulf countries through a digital resilience initiative focused on preparedness and the protection of critical data.

So far, the company has given no country-by-country breakdown of the investment, citing security among other factors. So while the headline figure is public, how Microsoft divides the spending among the four countries is not.