EFG Hermes, the investment banking arm of EFG Holding, said on Monday it had completed its advisory role on the $449m initial public offering (IPO) of Almoosa Healthcare Company on the Saudi Exchange (Tadawul).

Almoosa Health, a leading healthcare provider in Saudi Arabia, offered 30 per cent of its total issued share capital, comprising 9.3 million new shares and 4 million existing shares at SAR 127 ($33.87) per share. The offering valued the company at SAR 5.6bn ($1.5bn).

The IPO saw strong investor interest, with an oversubscription rate of 103 times. The company began trading under the ticker ALMOOSA on Tuesday and rose 15 per cent on debut as it hovered around the SAR139.60 mark.

“We are honoured to have played a pivotal role in the successful IPO of Almoosa Specialist Hospital, a key milestone for Saudi Arabia’s thriving healthcare sector,” Saud Altassan, CEO of EFG Hermes KSA, said in a statement.

Karim Meleka, co-head of investment banking at EFG Hermes, said the strong demand highlighted investor appetite for high-quality healthcare assets in the kingdom.

“We are proud to have played a role in the second Saudi healthcare group IPO this year and look forward to building on this momentum in 2025,” he said.

Based in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, Almoosa Health operates two hospitals in Al Ahsa with a combined capacity of 730 beds. It serves around one million patients annually and employs 326 physicians across various specialties.

The company reported SAR 979m in revenue and SAR 98m in net income in 2023. For the first nine months of 2024, it posted SAR 870m in revenue and SAR 40m in net income.

EFG Hermes acted as a joint bookrunner and underwriter on the transaction.

DP World’s container handling capacity has surged past 100 million TEUs, a substantial increase from 75.6 million TEUs in 2014, fuelled by more than $11bn (Dhs40.4bn) in investments over the past decade, according to the Dubai Media Office.

The logistics giant’s capacity has expanded by 33 per cent, driven by a combination of global expansion projects, including greenfield developments and acquisitions across the supply chain, from warehousing to transportation.

DP World’s gross container handling capacity surged by 5 per cent over the past year, solidifying the state-owned firm’s 9.2 per cent global market share. The expansion enhances the company’s ability to meet growing demand and extend its reach within the global supply chain.

“Crossing the 100 million TEU mark is a momentous milestone in our journey, which began 45 years ago. We are confident that the global container market will continue to grow in the years ahead and we will have the capacity to service it,” said Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, group chairman and chief executive of DP World.

With global container throughput expected to grow by 2.8 per cent in 2024, according to Drewry Container Forecaster, DP World has undertaken substantial investments spanning multiple countries across the globe.

The company is developing new ports in Senegal and India, complementing its existing infrastructure, multimodal transportation, and logistics services to better connect businesses with their customers.

“Over the last 20 years, we have invested in ports and terminals across the world, often in less traditional and underdeveloped trade markets, where our socio-economic impact has been significant. One of the major highlights of 2024 has been our takeover of the Dar es Salaam facility in Tanzania, which has not been developed since the 1950s,” said Tiemen Meester, COO of Ports & Terminals at DP World.

Last month, DP World commenced maritime works at the Port of Ndayane, marking a major step in the development of the $1.2bn project to transform Senegal into a major global trade hub. Phase 1 of the project includes an 840m quay and a 5 km channel capable of accommodating the world’s largest container ships and handling 1.2 million TEUs annually.

The second phase of the project, which adds a 410-meter quay, will position Ndayane as a leading logistics hub in West Africa upon completion.

Read: DP World issues MENA region’s first $100m blue bond

Egypt’s net foreign assets (NFAs) tumbled by $3.25bn in November, the second decline in two months, as impending foreign liabilities put the currency under pressure, central bank data showed.

NFAs declined to the equivalent of $5.96bn from $9.21bn at the end of October, according to Reuters calculations based on the official central bank currency rates. The decline followed a $1.12bn drop in October.

Egypt has been using NFAs, which include foreign assets at both the central bank and commercial banks, to help prop up its currency since as long ago as September 2021. NFAs turned negative in February 2022 and only returned to positive territory in May last year.

Egypt’s currency came under particularly strong pressure ahead of large foreign liabilities in December. These included the maturing of Egyptian pound treasury bills held by foreign investors, nearly $1bn in International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan repayments and payments for natural gas imports, bankers, brokers and analysts said.

On December 5, the currency breached the 50-pound psychological barrier for the first time since March, when the IMF agreed to an $8bn financial support package and Egypt allowed its currency to fall.

Foreign assets rose at the central bank in November but dipped at commercial banks, while foreign liabilities slid at both the central bank and commercial banks.

Read: Egypt to receive $1.2bn as part of IMF programme in January, finmin says

MSI is making a statement at CES 2025, unveiling a lineup that merges AI-driven advancements with cutting-edge gaming technology.

From high-performance gaming monitors and graphics cards to AI-powered desktops and compact computing solutions, the PC maker is looking to push the boundaries of performance, design, and intelligence.

At the heart of its showcase is AI integration, with MSI demonstrating how artificial intelligence enhances system management, gaming experiences, and everyday workflows.

“AI is more than a feature; it’s a force that transforms experiences,” said Sam Chern, MSI Vice President of Marketing.

“MSI’s CES 2025 lineup harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to create tools that learn, adapt, and empower users. Whether it’s powering smarter gaming, boosting creativity, or making everyday tasks a little easier, we’ve built AI into our products to optimize performance, simplify workflows, and deliver experiences that feel tailor-made for you. MSI is proud to be at the forefront, driving the evolution of the AI-powered era,” Chern added.

Here’s a closer look at MSI’s CES 2025 innovations.

AI-Driven Advancements: Smarter Computing and Gaming

MSI introduces the AI Robot, powered by NVIDIA ACE, designed to operate locally without an internet connection. This software enables intuitive system control, allowing users to manage their MSI laptops and desktops using natural language commands.

Meanwhile, the MEG VISION X AI gaming desktop is redefining AI in gaming. A double honoree at the CES 2025 Innovation Awards, this desktop features Intel Core Ultra Series 2 processors and NVIDIA graphics, along with a 13-inch AI touchscreen that provides hardware monitoring, intelligent mode switching, and MSI monitor control. The built-in microphone and speaker allow for voice-based interaction, while Silent Storm Cooling AI optimises fan speeds for quieter, high-performance gaming.

Gaming Monitors: Record-Breaking Refresh Rates and Stunning Visuals

MSI is setting new standards in gaming displays with its MPG 272URX QD-OLED gaming monitor, which has earned a CES Innovation Award. As the world’s first DP 2.1 27-inch 4K 240Hz QD-OLED monitor, it features a 5-layer tandem OLED panel with EL Gen 3 technology, offering 166 PPI clarity and full-bandwidth DP 2.1a connectivity. G-SYNC compatibility ensures tear-free, low-latency gaming, while MSI’s AI Navigator enhances immersion and gameplay intelligence.

Meanwhile, MSI is also unveiling the MPG 272QR QD-OLED X50, the world’s first DP 2.1a QHD 500Hz monitor. This display is built for high-speed gaming, featuring G-SYNC compatibility for ultra-smooth visuals, VESA Certified DisplayHDR True Black 500 for deep blacks and rich contrast, and ClearMR 21000 for exceptional motion clarity. Like its counterpart, it integrates MSI’s AI Navigator, ensuring smarter and more immersive gaming experiences.

Next-Gen Graphics Cards: The Power of NVIDIA Blackwell Architecture

MSI is introducing its latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics cards, designed for AI-driven gaming and content creation. The lineup includes Project SL, S, V, Trio, X, and I, all featuring advanced thermal solutions to ensure optimal cooling and performance.

The RTX 50 GPUs, powered by NVIDIA Blackwell architecture, offer next-gen AI capabilities, enabling features like DLSS 4 for boosted performance and graphics fidelity and NVIDIA Studio enhancements for creators. Additionally, NVIDIA NIM microservices streamline AI assistants, agents, and workflows, making them more efficient.

For DIY gamers, MSI has unveiled Project I and Project X RTX 5080, 5070 Ti, and 5070 cards, designed to follow the SFF-Ready Enthusiast GeForce Card size guidelines. These GPUs provide compact yet powerful performance, making them ideal for mini-ITX and micro-ATX cases.

Power Supplies: Built for AI and High-Performance Computing

Ensuring next-gen GPUs and AI computing systems run smoothly, MSI has introduced the MEG Ai1600T PCIE5 and MPG A1250GS PCIE5 power supplies. These units feature 105°C-rated Japanese capacitors, whisper-quiet fans, and dual-color 12V-2×6 cables, ensuring efficient power delivery for AI applications.

The MEG Ai1600T PCIE5, in particular, uses SiC-MOSFET technology and interleaved PFC, providing server-grade stability and certifications from 80 Plus, Cybenetics, and PPLP.

Compact AI Computing and DIY-Friendly Motherboards

MSI is revolutionising compact computing with its Cubi NUC AI Series Mini PCs. The Cubi NUC AI+ 2M comes equipped with AI-driven tools, a fingerprint power button, and a dedicated AI Co-Pilot button for enhanced productivity. It also includes a built-in microphone and speaker, making voice interaction seamless.

For those looking for a streamlined, high-performance alternative, the Cubi NUC AI 1UM offers dual Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI, and dual 2.5G LAN ports, delivering powerful AI performance in a compact form factor.

In the motherboard segment, MSI’s new Intel and AMD B chipset motherboards provide high-end connectivity and simplified PC building. They feature EZ DIY enhancements, including:

• EZ PCIe Release and EZ PCIe Clip II for effortless GPU removal
• EZ M.2 Shield Frozr II and EZ M.2 Clip II for easy SSD installation
• EZ Antenna and pre-installed I/O shields for a more user-friendly experience

For DIY enthusiasts, MSI PROJECT ZERO X takes innovation a step further with a Back-Connect system, relocating all cables to the rear for a clutter-free panoramic setup. With glass panels that enhance customisation, this design redefines the aesthetics of PC building.

High-Speed Storage and Advanced Gaming Peripherals

MSI is also making waves in high-speed storage with the DATAMAG 40Gbps Portable SSD. This next-gen drive, built with USB 4.0 technology and the PHISON U21 controller, offers transfer speeds of up to 40Gbps. Housed in a durable aluminium shell, it is ideal for PCs, consoles, iPhones, and professional video editing applications.

The company is also introducing new gaming peripherals:

• STRIKE wireless keyboard, featuring hot-swappable keys and MSI SONIC switches
• VERSA wireless mice, delivering 26,000 DPI precision and ergonomic flexibility
• FORCE wireless controllers, equipped with hall effect sensors, responsive thumb-sticks, and customisable rear buttons
• MAESTRO headset, offering high-resolution audio and crystal-clear communication

With cross-platform connectivity, ultra-low latency, and lightweight designs, MSI is ensuring seamless performance for gamers, professionals, and content creators.

Where to Experience MSI at CES 2025

📍 Veronese 2403-2406, Level 2, Halls A-D, Venetian Expo
📍 Booth 3075, West Hall, LVCC

For the latest updates, visit MSI’s official site.

Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle tells us there is trade-off between certainties of measurement. The more accurately we measure position, the less accurately we can measure momentum, and vice versa.

Artificial intelligence (AI) suffers from a similar balancing act between responsive and responsible AI. Business leaders want insights before competitors come to the same conclusions. But they are also faced with appeasing customers, employees, investors, and regulators on the issue of responsible AI.

Unlocking the benefits of generative AI (GenAI) can expose the business to many risks, ranging from privacy violations to an array of data-related prejudices that can arise when building and using machine-learning models. How does the CIO solve this trade-off?

GenAI: Within and without

Like any new tech, GenAI’s adoption does not come without challenges and risks. Brand image is at stake, so it is to the advantage of every AI adopter to consider the risks to security and customer privacy before taking any steps toward adoption.

GenAI’s risks stem from its dual role as both an inward- and outward-facing tool. Increasingly, organisations are going beyond cost optimisation to transform external customer interactions.

If CIOs can get the inward-outward balance right, they can reap the rewards from their GenAI investments and deliver new value for the business. To accomplish rapid response while adequately managing risk, data governance will be critical, as will a coherent AI vision that accounts for the current tendency to overestimate GenAI’s short-term impacts and underestimate its longer-term potential.

This is not a new mistake unique to GenAI. It has become something of a tradition with emerging technologies. However, with GenAI it becomes a potentially critical error. If we, say, rush to reinvent processes for the sake of efficiency, we may overlook vital issues of data integrity.

Given the potential risk of a data breach, CIOs seeking to maximise the value of GenAI at speed and scale must never take their eyes off the importance of data security.

Elastic governance

To properly address the Great GenAI trade-off between responsiveness and responsibility, enterprises must begin and end with governance. CIOs must come to see data and AI governance not as manuals that are written once and rigidly followed thereafter. Policy must be elastic — subject to change as, for example, the CIO’s relationship with risk officers changes.

Culture, including the organisation’s approach to management, must also change to fulfill the goal of maximising gains from GenAI while protecting the business, its people and its customers.

One way of plugging AI skills gaps in the GCC is to upskill from within. As low-code and no-code platforms have aided the rise of the citizen developer, challenges have emerged. GenAI represents a democratisation of development.

CIOs may need to reimagine their role in the organisation. They are now much more than just infrastructure stewards. They are data custodians who must pay due attention to both security and potential for innovation. The CIO must now lead on data governance, which starts with establishing the ability to identify the location of data in real-time. Tech leaders must comprehensively map and monitor each data source inside or outside the business.

This issue may be the greatest challenge in corporate IT today. While visibility has never been more critical, it has also never been more difficult. Data moves to serve the needs of providers and their customers. And if tracking its current location is a challenge for the CIO, this presents a risk when it comes to protecting that data and maintaining its quality.

Verification and refinement are significant elements of responsible AI, so tech leaders must define and develop a forward-looking data strategy that is tightly coupled to business goals, but also imposes strict frameworks that ensure quality, privacy and security.

Learning from others

Sustainable success in AI requires a cultural shift. The CIO will be both AI champion and AI teacher, encouraging colleagues to look at data differently by highlighting the connection between it and business value.

By promoting data fluency, the CIO becomes a value creator. They will also engage with partners and peers to shape the market. They will make use of existing networks while creating new ones. Through this continuous learning, CIOs will improve their understanding of GenAI and what their priorities should be to maximise its value-add.

Within these knowledge-exchange networks, CIOs will find GenAI vendors who will come under increasing pressure to be transparent about how their algorithms operate, going so far as to allow their customers to inspect them. That transparency must extend to clear explanations of where data is stored, sent, and processed. And vendors will be expected to comment openly on how data can be managed within the complex and fast-moving regulatory environments we find in regions such as the GCC.

GenAI represents an opportunity and a challenge for CIOs. Leaders must go back to the drawing board on data governance and put it front and centre. There is an opportunity for AI to play a role in data governance by continuously monitoring for potential vulnerabilities and operating autonomously to remedy them. It appears as if GenAI is not bound by limits in terms of what use cases it can satisfy. It will be up to the CIO to impose such limits in consultation with colleagues, as they decide where to deploy it, what roles should be reshaped, and what business processes should be optimised.

The stakes are high. Mastering the responsiveness-responsibility trade-off means competitiveness and prosperity. Getting it wrong could mean the end of a brand.

The writer is the head of AI Innovation, EMEA, ServiceNow.

Read: ‘AI can serve the greater good’, says Amazon CTO Dr Werner Vogels