Snowflake has announced the general availability of its AI Data Cloud on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Middle East (UAE) Region, enabling organisations to unlock AI-powered data insights while meeting performance, governance and data residency requirements.

The UAE launch builds on the deepening partnership between Snowflake and AWS, with Snowflake more than doubling its transaction growth year-on-year on AWS Marketplace to exceed $2 billion in global sales within a calendar year.

The expansion comes as the UAE accelerates its push to embed artificial intelligence across the economy, supported by its National AI Strategy 2031, which prioritises talent development, innovation and resilient digital infrastructure. As enterprises move from experimentation to large-scale AI deployment, demand has grown for secure, governed data environments that can support production-grade AI workloads across sectors.

By deploying the AI Data Cloud on the AWS Middle East (UAE) Region, Snowflake brings customers closer to their data, reducing latency, improving performance and enabling compliance with local data residency and regulatory requirements. The move represents the latest milestone in Snowflake’s long-term collaboration with AWS to support enterprise-grade data and AI adoption.

“The combination of secure local infrastructure, strong governance controls, and AI-ready performance is essential as the UAE moves to turn its national AI goals into long-term value,” said Tareq Masoud, Country Manager, UAE, Snowflake. “In our pursuit to consistently deliver and address customer and national needs, our deep collaboration with AWS strengthens that foundation by giving local organisations a powerful way to modernise data platforms, build trusted and secure AI systems, and generate business value and outcomes from their data and AI at scale.”

Strengthening enterprise AI adoption with AWS

The announcement also highlights the scale of Snowflake’s global momentum on AWS. Snowflake has doubled its AWS Marketplace growth year-on-year and has received 14 AWS partner awards, including AWS Partner of the Year recognitions across multiple technology, industry and regional categories.

Through AWS Marketplace, enterprises can more easily access Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud, simplifying procurement while accelerating deployment of advanced integrations with AWS services. As organisations scale AI initiatives, Snowflake and AWS are jointly enabling interoperable data architectures designed to support secure, cost-effective innovation.

Key joint capabilities include:

• Catalog Federation between AWS Glue Data Catalog and Snowflake Catalogs – allowing customers to access Apache Iceberg-format data managed by the Snowflake Horizon Catalog directly through AWS Glue Data Catalog. This enables a single access point for Iceberg data across both platforms, reducing duplication, data movement and associated costs.

• Catalog-linked databases from Snowflake to AWS Glue Data Catalog – enabling Snowflake-centric customers to link databases directly to AWS Glue Data Catalog without creating individual externally managed Iceberg tables. This allows automatic discovery and synchronisation, supports read/write access, and includes vended credentials and Amazon S3 Tables to simplify large-scale governance and management.

As enterprises across the UAE and wider region accelerate AI adoption, the availability of Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud on the AWS Middle East (UAE) Region provides a local, enterprise-ready foundation for building trusted data platforms and deploying AI at scale.

Read: AI adoption in UAE’s public sector: Dell’s Walid Yehia on trends to watch in 2026

U.S. President Donald Trump filed a $5 billion lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase and its CEO Jamie Dimon on Thursday, accusing them of debanking him by closing several of his accounts to further a political agenda.

The lawsuit, filed in a Florida state court in Miami-Dade County, accused the largest U.S. bank of violating its own policies by singling out Trump to ride the “political tide.”

JPMorgan denied that it closes accounts for political or religious reasons.

“While we regret President Trump has sued us, we believe the suit has no merit,” it said. “We respect the President’s right to sue us and our right to defend ourselves.”

Later on Thursday, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One he had not spoken with Dimon about the lawsuit.

“You’re not allowed to do what they did,” he said. “So wrong. I don’t know what their excuse would be. Maybe their excuse would be the regulators.”

Trump has also attacked other lenders including Bank of America with allegations of debanking, and recently stirred up industry opposition by demanding a 10 per cent cap on credit card interest rates.

Dimon, who has run JPMorgan for two decades and is one of the most influential figures in corporate America, told the World Economic Forum on Wednesday that capping card rates would curb access to credit for many consumers and amount to an “economic disaster.”

At the same time, industry executives have cheered the administration’s push for deregulation, which they say could cut red tape, boost profits and spur economic growth.

Trump says JPMorgan maliciously created ‘blacklist’

Trump accused JPMorgan of violating its principles unilaterally by shutting accounts belonging to him and his hospitality companies.

He also accused Dimon of ordering a malicious “blacklist” to warn other banks about doing business with the Trump Organization and Trump family members, as well as with Trump himself.

“Plaintiffs also suffered extensive reputational harm by being forced to reach out to other financial institutions in an effort to move their funds and accounts, making it clear that they had been debanked,” Trump added.

JPMorgan said it closes accounts that create legal or regulatory risk for the company. “We regret having to do so but often rules and regulatory expectations lead us to do so,” it said.

Shares of JPMorgan closed up 0.5% on Thursday and were flat premarket on Friday.

Capital One Financial COF.N, another large bank, has sought to dismiss a similar lawsuit filed last March by several Trump plaintiffs, including the president’s son Eric Trump. That lawsuit is still pending.

The White House referred a request for comment to Trump’s private lawyer, who had no immediate comment.

Debanking scrutiny intensifies

Banks have faced growing political pressure in recent years, particularly from conservatives who say lenders have for political reasons discriminated against industries such as firearms and fossil fuels.

That pressure has intensified during Trump’s second White House term, with the Republican accusing some banks of refusing to serve him and other conservatives. Banks have denied that allegation.

In December, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a leading bank regulator, said in a report that the nine largest U.S. banks have restricted financial services to certain industries as part of a debanking push.

The regulator did not provide specific examples of wrongdoing but said it had found large banks either refused services to some industries or required higher levels of scrutiny from 2020 to 2023.

Those affected included oil and gas companies, cryptocurrency firms, tobacco and e-cigarette manufacturers, and firearm companies, it said. The regulator found that many banks publicly disclosed restrictive policies, often tied to environmental, social and governance goals.

Many banks have since curtailed such practices and the regulator said it is continuing to review thousands of debanking complaints.

Last year, JPMorgan said it was cooperating with inquiries from government agencies and other entities regarding its policies in light of the Trump administration’s push against alleged debanking.

U.S. regulators have also examined whether their own supervisory policies discouraged banks from serving certain corporate customers.

Last year, federal bank regulators said they would stop policing banks based on so-called reputational risk, under which supervisors could penalize institutions for activities that were not explicitly illegal but could expose them to negative publicity or costly litigation.

Some banks viewed the reputational risk standard as vague and subjective, giving supervisors wide discretion.

The industry has also urged regulators to update anti-money laundering rules, which can force banks to close suspicious accounts without explanation.

Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, chairman of Qatar Sports Investments, chairman of beIN Media Group, and president of Paris Saint-Germain, participated in the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, where he addressed the expanding role of sport as a driver of economic value, capital formation, and long-term development.

Al-Khelaïfi was a panellist in a closed-door thought leadership dialogue titled The New Global Playbook: Athletes, Investment and the Future of Sport, hosted at the Invest Qatar Pavilion. The session convened a select group of global investors, business leaders, elite athletes, and policymakers to examine how sport has evolved from competition-driven activity into an interconnected system that mobilises capital, builds enterprises, and shapes global influence.

The panel brought together senior figures from across the sports and investment ecosystem, including NBA Hall of Famer and entrepreneur Tracy McGrady, Olympic medallist and professional beach volleyball athlete Cherif Younousse, and was moderated by global sports executive David Moreno Jr., senior partner at Norton Rose Fulbright.

Discussions focused on the full lifecycle of modern sport, highlighting how athletes are increasingly transitioning beyond competition into ownership, entrepreneurship, governance, media, and cross-border commercial ventures. Panellists noted that sporting success is now measured not only in titles and performance, but also in institutional strength, long-term value creation, and global relevance.

The dialogue also explored sport’s growing role in shaping global wellness narratives, alongside the challenges of scaling high-performance ecosystems across markets while maintaining credibility, governance standards, and cultural authenticity. Participants underscored how Qatar and the wider Gulf region have emerged as central players in this evolution, driven by sustained investment in clubs, infrastructure, talent development, and global media platforms.

Drawing on the experience of Qatar Sports Investments, Al-Khelaïfi shared perspectives on building sustainable sports ecosystems, emphasising the importance of aligning long-term capital, strong governance frameworks, and media infrastructure. He highlighted how this integrated approach is contributing to the continued growth of the global sports industry, in line with Qatar National Vision 2030 and the Third National Development Strategy.

Co-hosted by Allam Global Ventures, Global Venture Partners, and Qatar Sports Investments, in partnership with TIME Africa, Rolling Stone MENA, and Robb Report Africa, the dialogue positioned sport alongside finance and technology as an increasingly significant economic force shaping global investment and development agendas.

Read: Qatar Sports Investments to acquire Belgian football club KAS Eupen

As marketing enters a more demanding era, industry leaders across sectors are redefining how brands drive measurable business impact through data, insight, and experience-led engagement.

This shift will take center stage at the upcoming 4th Edition of The Great Marketing & Business Minds UAE 2026, to be held on January 29 at Pullman Dubai Downtown, bringing together senior marketing decision-makers to exchange strategies shaping the future of marketing in the region.

Global research firms point to growing expectations placed on marketing leaders. Gartner forecasts mounting pressure on marketers to deliver provable revenue contribution in 2026, while McKinsey identifies first-party data and modern measurement frameworks as essential foundations for trusted personalisation at scale. At the same time, Forrester cautions that poorly implemented AI-driven self-service risks eroding brand trust if relevance and empathy are lost in the process.

These converging insights underscore a broader shift underway across the industry, where performance and accountability are becoming central to marketing leadership agendas.

A shift towards focus and consumer insight

Marketing leadership is increasingly moving away from chasing every new channel toward a more disciplined focus. Organisations are investing more heavily in consumer insight capabilities, advanced analytics, and personalisation platforms designed to support long-term customer relationships. Competitive advantage now depends on aligning data intelligence with experience design, organisational culture, and sustained engagement strategies.

Sharad V K, independent marketing consultant and fractional CMO, emphasises that marketing is being held to a higher standard. “We are entering an era where marketing is held to a higher standard of accountability. To drive genuine business growth, brands must master the intersection of data and human experience,” said Sharad. He added that collective learning and shared experiences across the industry are key to elevating performance and highlighting brands that successfully connect strategic brilliance with measurable outcomes.

Peer exchange gains strategic importance

As marketing matures into a performance-driven business function, peer exchange is becoming increasingly valuable. Paurush Sonkar, founder of Digital Stallions Forum and organiser of The Great Marketing & Business Minds UAE, notes growing collaboration among senior leaders.

“Across sectors, leaders are facing similar questions about marketing effectivity, data, focus on Gen-Z, measurement, and trust,” he said. “Bringing those voices together accelerates learning and helps set the benchmark for what effective modern marketing looks like.”

The 4th Edition of The Great Marketing & Business Minds UAE 2026 will convene senior marketing leaders, brand decision-makers, agencies, and solution providers in Dubai to exchange strategies, debate emerging approaches, and set new performance benchmarks for the year ahead.

For more information about the forum and registration, please visit here.

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development announced on Thursday, January 22, the launch of the second phase of the Nitaqat Al Mutawar Programme, a key initiative aimed at boosting employment for Saudi citizens in the private sector.

The program is designed to generate more than 340,000 additional jobs over the next three years, according to a report by Saudi Gazette.

Read more-Saudi’s salary scenario: Where the biggest paydays, hottest jobs will be in 2026

The ministry highlighted that the first phase of Nitaqat, launched in 2022, had already surpassed its employment target by providing over 550,000 jobs for Saudi nationals in the private sector. This milestone reflects the program’s success in stimulating job localisation, reducing unemployment, and increasing Saudi workforce participation.

“The program has been instrumental in encouraging private-sector employers to hire more Saudi nationals and in enhancing the overall competitiveness of the labor market,” the report said.

Building on past success

The second phase aims to build on the momentum of the initial rollout. The ministry stated that this phase will focus on increasing citizen participation, creating quality job opportunities, and achieving a sustainable balance between labor supply and demand. Officials believe these efforts will further strengthen private-sector confidence and support long-term national economic growth.

Minister of Human Resources and Social Development Ahmed Al-Rajhi emphasised that the new phase is designed to balance the twin goals of stimulating Saudisation while supporting private-sector expansion.

“The programme is based on a comprehensive analysis of the labor market and the capabilities of establishments across various sectors. The programme aims to achieve this goal by creating more jobs for Saudi nationals in the private sector,” Al Rajhi said.

Empowering national talent

Al Rajhi highlighted that past phases have proven the capability and efficiency of Saudi citizens across diverse professions.

“This forms the launch pad for a new phase that reflects the ministry’s commitment to empowering national competencies and enhancing their active participation in the labor market, contributing to a more stable and sustainable market while maintaining private-sector competitiveness,” he added.

Deputy Minister for the Labor Sector Abdullah Abuthnain explained that the ministry conducted detailed studies across sectors and companies. These analyses helped establish realistic Saudisation targets that account for the nature of work and market conditions, aligning with the availability of qualified Saudi professionals.

Abuthnain added that these measures will enhance job stability, increase productivity, and foster long-term sustainability in the labor market.