For much of the past five years, the artificial intelligence narrative has been dominated by model breakthroughs, parameter counts, and venture capital flows. But according to Natalie Hwang, founding managing partner of Apeira Capital, the centre of gravity has shifted.

The constraint is no longer model capability or capital availability. It is the economics of running intelligence at scale.

“What changed is that AI moved from experimentation into production,” Hwang says. “When models are in research mode, capability dominates the conversation. Once they are deployed at scale, the economics take over.”

That transition marks what she describes as a structural maturation of the industry rather than a slowdown. “The conversation is shifting from ‘what can models do?’ to ‘what can systems sustain?’ That is a structural maturation, not a slowdown.”

In the early phase of AI’s commercial expansion, training large models consumed attention and capital. Today, inference — the continuous process of running models in real-world environments — is emerging as the dominant cost centre.

“Inference is continuous and operational,” Hwang explains. “Unlike training, which is episodic, inference must run reliably, efficiently, and at scale.”

That shift is reshaping competitive dynamics. The focus is moving toward performance per watt, cost per token, and deployment efficiency. Companies that can scale under infrastructure constraints, she argues, will outperform those relying solely on marginal model improvements.

“The competitive landscape is becoming more about economic durability than technical spectacle.”

AI as industrial system

This transition is reframing AI as an infrastructure story as much as a technology one.

“AI remains a technology story, but it is increasingly governed by infrastructure realities,” Hwang says. As adoption broadens across industries, physical systems such as grids, data centres, cooling, and energy economics, define what is viable.

“We are moving into an industrial phase of AI, where physical systems determine scalability. That doesn’t diminish innovation; it anchors it in real-world constraints.”

In this phase, compute capacity, grid resilience, and cooling efficiency become strategic assets. The question is not just how intelligent a model is, but whether the system supporting it can sustain demand.

As power becomes a binding constraint, geography is re-entering the AI equation.

“Regions with abundant, reliable energy and the ability to build large-scale data infrastructure are becoming increasingly important,” Hwang says.

The global AI map, she argues, is shifting away from where ideas originate toward where intelligence can be hosted sustainably.

“Power availability and infrastructure density are emerging as structural advantages.”

That recalibration creates opportunities for regions traditionally viewed as capital providers rather than technology hosts.

The Middle East’s structural position

From a market-structure perspective, Hwang views the Middle East as a credible long-term host for compute-intensive AI systems.

“The region combines energy resources, sovereign-scale capital, and long investment horizons. Those factors are well aligned with the needs of compute-intensive AI systems.”

However, credibility depends on execution. “The question is less about capital and more about disciplined execution, ecosystem depth, and long-term infrastructure planning.”

In a world where inference economics determine scalability, energy resilience and infrastructure density become strategic differentiators; not just supportive factors.

The maturation of AI is also changing how capital is deployed. Rather than abandoning frontier model development, investment flows are widening.

“We are seeing capital broaden, not abandon,” Hwang explains. “Model development remains important, but incremental capital is increasingly directed toward infrastructure that can sustain deployment.”

As AI systems move from speculative promise to operational reality, investor priorities shift accordingly.

“As AI systems mature, the risk profile shifts from speculative model breakthroughs to operational performance. That changes how investors think about durability and returns.”

In this new phase, defensibility is defined less by novelty and more by structural alignment.

“Durability comes from alignment with structural constraints,” Hwang says. Systems that improve cost efficiency, energy utilisation, and deployment reliability will hold longer-lived advantages.

“In this phase, defensibility is tied less to novelty and more to whether a solution meaningfully lowers the cost of running intelligence at scale.”

That framing reframes AI from a breakthrough narrative to an industrial optimisation story, where economics, not hype, determine winners.

Avoiding strategic overreaction

For policymakers and investors, the temptation to chase headlines remains strong. Hwang urges restraint and systems thinking.

“Strategic advantage comes from building infrastructure with long-term utility, not from reacting to headlines.”

She emphasises three priorities: energy resilience, compute efficiency, and interoperability. AI, in her view, should be treated as an industrial system, not a speculative wave.

“The regions and institutions that treat it as such, rather than as a speculative wave, will be better positioned over time.”

As AI transitions from experimentation to deployment, the industry’s constraints are becoming more physical than theoretical. Megawatts, not models, increasingly define scalability.

The frontier is no longer just algorithmic sophistication. It is economic sustainability.

In that environment, competitive advantage will accrue not simply to those who build the most powerful models, but to those who can run intelligence efficiently, reliably, and durably — at scale.

Air Arabia has launched a Ramadan promotional campaign offering customers savings of up to 40 per cent on selected routes across the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Africa, as the airline looks to stimulate advance bookings ahead of the peak Eid and early summer travel period.

The Sharjah-based low-cost carrier said the offer is available for bookings made via its website and mobile app using the promo code RAMADAN. Tickets must be booked by February 25, 2026, for travel between March 25 and June 15, 2026.

The campaign covers a broad network spanning key regional markets including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt, alongside European destinations such as Greece, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland and Germany.

The promotion also extends to leisure and emerging tourism markets including Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Türkiye, Kenya, Thailand (Krabi) and the Maldives, as well as South Asian and African routes including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Uganda and Ethiopia.

Tiered discount structure

The airline has structured the offer around its fare families, with capped discounts applied per passenger, per flight direction.

For European, CIS and select African and Asian destinations, the maximum discount is set at:

• Dhs80 for Basic fares

• Dhs100 for Value fares

• Dhs150 for Ultimate fares

For GCC, Middle East and selected South Asian routes, the maximum discount is:

• Dhs50 for Basic fares

• Dhs70 for Value fares

• Dhs100 for Ultimate fares

A maximum discount limit applies per route and is automatically applied during the booking process once the promo code is entered.

Driving early Ramadan and Eid demand

The sale aligns with a traditionally high-demand travel window driven by Ramadan and Eid-related VFR (visiting friends and relatives) traffic, as well as short-haul leisure travel across the GCC and broader region. By incentivising early bookings through a time-bound campaign and digital-only access, Air Arabia is reinforcing its direct distribution strategy while optimising load factors across its network.

The airline noted that promotional fares are subject to limited seat allocation and may sell out before the campaign ends. Blackout dates and peak travel restrictions may apply, and the promotion cannot be combined with other offers unless otherwise stated. All fares remain subject to the airline’s standard fare rules and conditions of carriage.

The move comes amid continued pricing competition among regional low-cost carriers as they balance capacity growth with yield management in the run-up to the summer 2026 travel season.

Read: Air Arabia soars with Dhs656m Q3 profit, 16% jump from last year

Ramadan continues to reshape consumer behaviour across the GCC, combining cultural generosity with heightened spending, loyalty participation and digital engagement. For brands, the holy month has evolved beyond a seasonal sales spike into a strategic window to deepen customer relationships and drive measurable performance across retail, travel and financial services.

Across the UAE and Saudi Arabia, mobile commerce typically peaks during Ramadan evenings, particularly as families prepare for iftar and suhoor. Search interest for “offers” and “discounts” also rises sharply toward the end of the month. In response, loyalty programmes are intensifying their focus on personalised rewards, digital incentives and coalition partnerships to capture demand and strengthen retention.

“Ramadan isn’t a one-month campaign; it’s a strategic moment to reaffirm value with your most engaged customers,” says Gabi Kool, CEO of Loylogic. “Loyalty performs best when integrated into a holistic incentive approach that respects cultural sentiment and rewards customer commitment with relevance and respect.”

A fast-growing loyalty market

The regional loyalty market is expanding rapidly. It is projected to grow 16.3 per cent in 2025, reaching approximately $3.27bn, up from $2.81bn in 2024. In the UAE alone, loyalty programmes are expected to rise 16.1 per cent to around $490.8m in 2025, with continued double-digit growth forecast through 2028.

Across the GCC, the market is expected to sustain a compound annual growth rate of roughly 13.8 per cent through 2029, driven by digital adoption, coalition ecosystems and increasingly personalised engagement models. Younger consumers, particularly Gen Z, are showing stronger preference for experiential rewards over purely transactional perks, prompting brands to rethink traditional points-based strategies.

To resonate during Ramadan, brands are increasingly embedding loyalty within a wider incentive strategy. This includes:

• Experience-led engagement, such as exclusive iftar events and culturally aligned partnerships

• Data-driven personalisation using real-time behavioural insights

• Tiered rewards and tailored perks across the customer journey

• Digitally integrated reward ecosystems combining travel, premium merchandise and digital gift cards

“Today’s most effective loyalty strategies are built around meaningful engagement, not single reward categories,” continues Kool. “When brands design incentive ecosystems that combine experiential value, aspirational rewards, and seamless digital delivery, they create emotional connection driving both immediate engagement and sustained lifetime loyalty.”

Sector dynamics during Ramadan

Retail remains the largest contributor to loyalty activity during Ramadan, with heightened engagement across groceries, gifting and fashion. App-based programmes and mobile wallet integrations enable real-time rewards, while multi-brand coalitions allow seamless redemption across online and offline channels.

In travel and hospitality, domestic and regional movement supports increased activity across airline and hotel loyalty schemes. Tiered rewards, exclusive iftar experiences and cross-industry partnerships are driving redemption. The Middle East travel loyalty segment alone is estimated at approximately $1.14bn in 2025, led by the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, banks and fintech platforms are embedding rewards directly into everyday spending. Credit card incentives, buy-now-pay-later programmes and digital wallet integrations are encouraging higher transaction frequency during the month.

Industry analysts note that coalition loyalty models, AI-driven personalisation, fintech integration and experience-led rewards are becoming structural features of the regional market rather than temporary campaign tactics.

GCC banks could unlock up to $100bn in additional value by adopting agentic AI to manage credit risk and SME lending, according to Raj Abrol, CEO of Galytix.

Speaking at the Middle East Banking AI & Analytics Summit in Dubai, Abrol said small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) corporate lending is poised for significant growth over the next decade, creating a substantial revenue opportunity for banks that modernise their risk infrastructure.

He argued that artificial intelligence has moved beyond experimentation and into a phase where demonstrable return on investment is becoming measurable. Rather than deploying generic tools, Abrol urged financial institutions to implement risk domain-specialised AI systems trained specifically on credit risk knowledge and adaptable to each bank’s internal policies and processes.

Raj Abrol, CEO of global firm Galytix said: “The banking industry needs to wake up to the fact that generic LLMs are simply not fit for purpose in the high stakes credit risk marketplace. A lack of access to accurate data means that gaping opportunities offered by emerging market investments are missed, leaving credit chains fragmented. Risk domain specialised AI can embed credit policy, financial data and regulatory logic to unlock a lucrative, multi-billion-dollar market,” he added.

Industry analyst Patrick Sullivan, CEO of Parliament Street think tank, reinforced the message, calling for a more decisive shift in strategy.

“The banking industry cannot continue tinkering with AI, it needs to embrace expertly designed systems that can address real world problems. Risk assessment is an obvious use-case for the technology, but the financial services industry needs to wake up and recognise this fact,” he said.

Founded in 2015, Galytix works with major global financial institutions and was recently appointed to a supplier consortium with PwC supporting the Global Emerging Markets Risk Database (GEMs) Consortium in a multi-million-pound deal. The company has expanded its international footprint in recent years, including a growing presence across the GCC.

Its flagship product, CreditX, is an AI-powered agent designed to automate key credit processes such as data ingestion, financial analysis, memo generation and peer comparison, aligned with bank-specific credit policies and templates. According to the company, the platform can complete up to 30 hours of manual credit analysis work in under 30 minutes.

Renault will buy out truckmaker Volvo’s and shipping group CMA CGM’s stakes in their new generation electric vans joint venture Flexis, the French carmaker said on Monday.

The agreement will become effective by the end of the first half of 2026, as Renault CEO François Provost, who took over last year, accelerates his efforts to streamline the group’s operations.

The automaker was already planning to fold its Ampere electric-vehicle unit back into the group, two sources told Reuters in January, and has shut down its car-sharing services as part of restructuring its Mobilize division focused on new transport solutions.

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Flexis was created in 2024 by former Renault CEO Luca de Meo in partnership with Sweden’s Volvo, with CMA CGM joining later as a minority shareholder. Renault and Volvo each hold 45 per cent, with CMA CGM owning 10 per cent.

Production of the Renault Trafic Van E-Tech electric, the first model of the range, will begin as planned at Renault’s Sandouville plant in France by the end of 2026, the company said.

It added that Volvo will also market the vehicle from 2027 onwards through Renault Trucks, part of the Volvo Group, as part of a long-term partnership for light commercial vehicles.