Organizations in the Middle East and Africa are taking a more disciplined approach to deploying artificial intelligence to prioritize data management and “operational management,” the survey showed.
Veeam Software research found that 60% of businesses and organizations surveyed in the Middle East and Africa region believe data sovereignty is the biggest factor in determining how they implement AI into their workflows.
This percentage is higher than the global average of 56.6 percent, according to Veeam Software analysis.
The survey includes responses from 1,000 people working in enterprise IT, data, and security around the world.
Definitions of data sovereignty vary, but in the context of AI and technology, the term refers to an entity that maintains control over its own information and data.
“Organizations in the Middle East and Africa are increasingly recognizing that data sovereignty is more than just a compliance exercise,” said Mena Migally, regional vice president at Veeam.
“This is a strategic enabler to build trust in AI and drive secure digital transformation.”
The analysis also found that the Middle East and Africa region is the “most mature” in terms of implementing plans to maintain data sovereignty in light of AI deployment.
“The challenge now is maintaining visibility and control across an increasingly complex ecosystem spanning cloud environments, AI platforms, and third-party providers,” Migaley said.
The continuing AI boom has sparked a debate about the sanctity of data, specifically what should and should not be uploaded to AI chatbots.
In an interview at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, in January, Sandbox AQ CEO Jack Hidary reflected on how people upload sensitive information to various AI tools without thinking about the consequences.
“I’m not talking about closed, licensed AI tools. I’m talking about general-purpose chatbots like ChatGPT or Gemini,” Hidary said. The National.
He pointed to a recent incident involving Samsung in which two engineers used confidential information to prompt ChatGPT, which he said “became part of the data that can be queried today.”
“Similar incidents occur every day,” he said.
Veeam’s findings come as AI spending comes under intense scrutiny and executives seek a return on investment.
This scrutiny has also sparked debate among AI company founders and executives who are competing for influence and seeking an advantage in advancing their business models.
Palantir CEO Alex Karp said in a recent interview with CNBC that his company is best positioned to capitalize on data sovereignty concerns compared to competing AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
“I’m not blaming them, but something is completely wrong,” he said, arguing that many in the private sector are tired of spending huge amounts of money on AI tools that don’t necessarily protect data.
He said Palantir’s ontology system is “secure because it doesn’t touch the underlying data, secure because it prevents large-scale language models from capturing data and duplicating your business, and secure because it doesn’t transfer intellectual property.”
