NTT DATA pushes sovereign AI and agentic solutions to Riyadh in consulting repositioning at LEAP 2026

Major global technology consulting firms are moving to turn the LEAP 2026 conference in Riyadh into a live platform to showcase their capabilities in sovereign AI and agentic systems, as Japan's NTT DATA announced its participation as a diamond sponsor in the event scheduled to run between 31 August and 3 September. The move reflects the accelerating pace of international competition to lead major digital transformation projects in Saudi Arabia, under the objectives of Vision 2030 aimed at establishing Riyadh as a global hub for technology and investment.

The global firm, which employs more than 190,000 people across 70 countries and generates $30 billion in annual revenue, is showcasing an integrated suite of solutions covering smart cities, transport systems, digital twins, robotics, information security, and enterprise applications.Statements from the company's regional leadership indicate that the current focus is no longer limited to connecting infrastructure, but rather shifting cities and public services to become genuinely intelligent and autonomous through the integration of connected data platforms and intelligent agents.Leading this approach at the conference are Rami Baydas, Managing Director for the company's business in Saudi Arabia, and Burcak Soydan, Managing Director for the Middle East, alongside international leaders specialising in public sector AI and global markets.

This move follows a series of recent strategic steps taken by NTT DATA, including expanding its partnership with Google Cloud to deploy agentic AI solutions through Gemini Enterprise, signing a regional partnership with Nutanix to accelerate cloud adoption in the Middle East and Africa, and acquiring firms specialised in Microsoft environments.These moves illustrate that technology services firms are reshaping their portfolios to transition from traditional consultancy providers into developers of operational environments capable of managing agents and securing data sovereignty.

This shift introduces new operational realities for CTOs and engineering teams across the Gulf, Egypt, and the Levant. Government and enterprise projects are no longer looking for pilot generative AI experiments. Instead, the decisive metric has become the ability to localise processing within sovereign AI frameworks and connect intelligent agents directly to daily operations. For technical leaders and developers, this environment demands a reassessment of team skill sets, moving from basic prompt engineering to designing autonomous agent workflows, establishing governance, and integrating with legacy systems.

Consolidating global technology presence in Riyadh is redefining the competitive landscape across the entire region. Operational efficiency, the ability to lower cloud infrastructure costs, and connecting with local data have become the true differentiators among consulting firms, providing regional organisations with broader options and greater execution capacity to accelerate the deployment of intelligent systems.