IDC and AMD Dinner Roundtable Riyadh

27 Sep 2026 Fairmont Riyadh

IDC and AMD Dinner Roundtable Riyadh

2026: The Year to Build Saudi Arabia's AI Sovereignty

27 Sep 2026 Fairmont Riyadh

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Overview

Saudi Arabia has declared 2026 its Year of Artificial Intelligence, building on a sovereignty-first model that already mandates data residency under the Personal Data Protection Law.  As Vision 2030 pushes enterprises to move faster on AI, CIOs are discovering that the infrastructure choices they make today will decide how much control they actually keep over their own AI future.

IDC and AMD are convening a closed-door roundtable in Riyadh for senior CIOs, CTOs, and IT leaders to work through these decisions together, away from the sales pitch, in a room built for a real working conversation.

Attendees leave with a practical framework for evaluating sovereign AI infrastructure investments, grounded in IDC research and real-world deployment models from the region.

Key Learning Outcomes Include

A framework for sovereignty by design

How to evaluate open AI architectures so compute stays under local control without sacrificing performance.

A blueprint from Saudi Arabia’s largest sovereign AI commitment

What the HUMAIN model reveals about AI infrastructure decisions at national scale.

A regulatory sequencing plan

How to align AI infrastructure investment with PDPL and NCA requirements before scaling, not after.

Agenda

IDC and AMD Dinner Roundtable Riyadh

One Day Event

6:00PM

Registration & Networking

7:00PM

IDC Keynote: Sovereign AI in Saudi Arabia

IDC presents current data on sovereign AI infrastructure adoption in Saudi Arabia, as Vision 2030 and NSDAI accelerate national AI investment.

Shahin Hashim

Shahin Hashim

Associate Research Director (META), IDC

7:20PM

AMD keynote: Open Infrastructure, Sovereign Outcomes

AMD shares how open, full-stack AI compute, from silicon to software, gives Saudi enterprises a path to sovereign AI at scale without proprietary lock-in.

Zaid Ghattas

Zaid Ghattas

General Manager – METAP, AMD

7:40PM

Panel Discussion: Beyond data residency, what sovereignty actually requires from infrastructure and governance

Shahin Hashim

Shahin Hashim

Associate Research Director (META), IDC

Zaid Ghattas

Zaid Ghattas

General Manager – METAP, AMD

8:10PM

Summary and Key Takeaways

8:15PM

Dinner & Networking

Speakers

Shahin Hashim

Shahin Hashim

Associate Research Director (META)

IDC

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Zaid Ghattas

Zaid Ghattas

General Manager – METAP

AMD

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Venue

Fairmont Hotel, Riyadh

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