SAS announced the opening of its new Middle East and North Africa Regional Headquarters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The announcement was made today at SAS Innovate on Tour in Riyadh, the company’s flagship regional event attended by senior government leaders, industry pioneers, and technology innovators.
The new headquarters strengthens SAS’s long-standing presence in the Kingdom and signals its commitment to helping governments and enterprises harness the power of AI and advanced analytics to drive innovation, efficiency, and sustainable growth.
“Saudi Arabia is rapidly emerging as a hub for innovation and digital transformation. By establishing our regional headquarters in Riyadh, we are positioning ourselves at the heart of this growth. Our investment underscores SAS’s belief in the Kingdom’s potential and our commitment to supporting Vision 2030.” said Alexander Tikhonov, Regional Director, Middle East Türkiye & Africa, SAS
Mohammed Kiki, Country Manager, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, SAS added “From Riyadh, SAS will partner with governments, enterprises, and academia across the Middle East to deliver cutting-edge AI and analytics solutions. This headquarters will also serve as a hub for knowledge sharing, skills development, and regional collaboration.”
SAS’s regional HQ will house leadership, customer engagement, consulting, innovation resources, further strengthening collaboration with local partners and customers across key sectors such as banking, government, energy and utilities and telecom.
SAS Innovate on Tour in Riyadh highlighted how advanced analytics and emerging technologies such as Agentic AI, Generative AI, and Digital Twins are shaping the future of decision-making. Attendees heard from global SAS experts on how organisations can simplify complexity, enhance productivity, and adopt responsible AI practices that emphasise trust, transparency, and governance. Sessions explored the potential of SAS Viya innovations to make AI more accessible and scalable, ensuring businesses can generate measurable outcomes faster.
SAS used the event to outline its long-term strategy, built on four priorities: customer success, strategic partnerships, building the next generation of innovators, and preserving the company’s unique culture. As part of its $1 billion, three-year investment announced in 2023, SAS is advancing AI and advanced analytics solutions designed to meet the specific needs of the industries it serves.
These efforts are already showing results, with innovations including trusted generative AI capabilities, synthetic data generation, and Viya Copilots. The company is also expanding the use of digital twins in manufacturing and working with global partners to advance quantum computing, focusing on challenges in life sciences, banking, and materials science. With SAS Viya’s cloud-native architecture and native Python integration, organisations can empower developers, accelerate model deployment, and operationalise AI to achieve faster returns on investment. Presented in collaboration with partners Microsoft, Intel, AWS, RedHat, gold partner DataScience Middle East, silver partners Abdulla Fouad and A1 Softech and bronze partners Jeraisy and Redington, SAS Innovate on Tour Riyadh emphasised how trusted partnerships and cutting-edge innovation could help organisations outpace change, outperform competition, and build a future where data and AI power progress at scale.
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