The agreement was signed at LEAP by the ministry’s deputy minister for IT and digital transformation, and includes commitments on knowledge transfer and local technical capability.
Nutanix and Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore modernising the ministry’s digital infrastructure through hybrid multicloud technologies, the company announced on 8 September.
The MoU was signed at LEAP in Riyadh by Dr Abdullhameed Abdullah Aleliwi, Deputy Minister for Information Technology and Digital Transformation at the ministry, and Talal Al-Saif, Regional Director for Saudi Arabia at Nutanix.
The scope covers three areas. The first is infrastructure modernisation using Nutanix’s hybrid cloud platform, with the stated objective of enabling applications and workloads to run and move across data centres and multiple cloud environments, and of supporting the adoption of AI technologies. The second is resilience, specifically business continuity, disaster recovery and cybersecurity capability. The third is national capability development and knowledge transfer, aimed at growing local technical expertise in hybrid multicloud computing and modern infrastructure management, which the parties link to the localisation of technology.
The ministry oversees water security, agricultural production and environmental monitoring, portfolios that generate substantial sensor, satellite and operational data and that sit within the critical national infrastructure perimeter. Data residency and continuity requirements in that category typically shape which architectures are viable before any AI workload discussion begins.
Dr Aleliwi said: “Digital transformation is a fundamental pillar supporting the Kingdom’s ambitions to build resilient, agile and data-driven government robust public services. Through this MoU, we look forward to exploring opportunities to enhance our digital infrastructure, strengthen business continuity and develop national capabilities in advanced cloud and AI technologies.”
Al-Saif said: “Nutanix is committed to supporting organisations in Saudi Arabia with modern, flexible, and resilient infrastructure that can simplify hybrid multicloud operations while creating a strong foundation for emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence. This MoU also reflects our commitment to knowledge transfer and the development of local technical capabilities.”
