NTT DATA announced its intention to launch the NTT DATA AI Factory Lab in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Designed to help organisations accelerate AI adoption, the lab will bring together NTT DATA’s full stack AI solutions and services expertise and technologies from leading ecosystem partners, including Cisco and NVIDIA, to help scale AI with confidence.
Scheduled to open in September 2026, the AI Factory Lab will support executive briefings, AI strategy workshops and hands-on experiences that will help organisations identify high-impact AI use cases, validate business outcomes and accelerate adoption on a secure, integrated foundation spanning infrastructure, platforms and services.
“While interest in AI continues to grow, many organisations are looking for a practical path from experimentation to business outcomes,” said Hani Nofal, Executive Head of Infrastructure Solutions in Middle East and Africa, NTT DATA. “The AI Factory Lab brings together the expertise, technologies and ecosystem partnerships needed to help clients identify the right use cases, deploy AI securely and scale with confidence.”
Located in Saudi Arabia’s leading business and innovation hub, the AI Factory Lab supports the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 ambitions by helping public and private sector organisations adopt advanced technologies that drive productivity, innovation and economic growth.
The AI Factory Lab will feature interactive demonstrations of real-world AI use cases across employee productivity, customer experience, intelligent operations, cybersecurity, networking, software development and industry-specific business processes. Organisations will be able to explore how agentic AI can automate workflows, improve decision-making, enhance experiences and unlock greater value from enterprise data.
Featured experiences will include the Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA, showcasing how organisations can build, deploy, secure, govern and scale AI workloads on an enterprise-grade AI infrastructure foundation. The experience will highlight the data, infrastructure, security and governance capabilities required to move AI from experimentation into production while maintaining visibility, compliance and operational resilience.
Cisco intends to provide the critical AI infrastructure foundation for the lab, including Cisco’s leading networking, security, observability and collaboration capabilities that enable enterprise AI adoption. NVIDIA will provide the accelerated computing platform and AI software technologies powering generative AI, agentic AI, computer vision and digital twin workloads.
“In the race to adopt AI, organisations need more than just technology – they need a foundation of absolute trust and control,” said Cassie Roach, VP of Partner Sales, AI Infrastructure & Connectivity at Cisco. “By integrating the Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA into their AI Factory Lab, NTT DATA provides a secure, validated sandbox where customers can test, refine and prove their AI strategies with confidence before making a full-scale commitment, turning ‘what if?’ into reality.”
“Organisations across the Middle East and Africa are moving from AI exploration to production, and NVIDIA accelerated computing and AI software provide the foundation to build, deploy and scale secure AI workloads,” said Dirk Barfuss, Director of EMEA channel at NVIDIA. “Through the NTT DATA AI Factory Lab in Riyadh, customers can experience the Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA firsthand, helping them validate high-impact use cases and move from experimentation to practical business outcomes with confidence.”
The lab forms part of NTT DATA’s global AI strategy to help organisations adopt and scale AI responsibly, securely and effectively through consulting, infrastructure, technology services and industry-focused solutions.
The NTT DATA AI Factory Lab reflects NTT DATA’s commitment to helping organisations across the Middle East and Africa transform AI potential into practical, secure and scalable business outcomes.
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