E-Business
Spending on Artificial Intelligence in MEA to Top $530 M by 2022 – IDC

Artificial intelligence (AI) spending in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) is poised to reach $290 million this year, rising to $530 million in 2022, according to the latest forecast from International Data Corporation (IDC).
The global technology research and consulting firm expects investment in AI across the region to grow 42.5% year on year in 2019 and continue increasing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.2% over the 2019-2022 period.
IDC’s research shows that the top three industries in terms of AI investment in 2019 will be banking, manufacturing, and retail. These industries will remain the top three through 2022, although spending by federal/central governments across MEA will see the strongest growth of the region’s top five verticals, increasing at a CAGR of 26.3%.
The three most popular use cases – automated customer service agents, automated threat intelligence and prevention systems, and fraud analysis and investigation – will account for a combined 31.4% of AI investment across MEA in 2019.
These use cases are expected to retain their positions throughout the forecast period, with spending on automated customer service agents growing the fastest at a CAGR of 25.8% to reach $66 million in 2022.
According to an extensive IDC survey conducted earlier this year among CIOs from across the Middle East, the top five drivers fueling demand for AI systems are the desire to improve customer support, augment marketing activities, boost overall efficiency, enhance the quality of products and services, and drive sales.
Such benefits have become the hallmark of artificial intelligence as the technology advances and organizations wake up to its groundbreaking potential to revolutionize the way they work.
“Spending on AI in the MEA region this year is set to almost double from where it stood in 2017, which reflects the huge growth in interest we have seen around this technology over the last 18 months.
“Investments in artificial intelligence are being driven by the promise, opportunity, and excitement of a new wave of automation that not only drives inefficiency out of processes but also changes how people interact with the digital world around them.
Indeed, the use of AI-based automation and the changing relationship between employees and increasingly intelligent machines will drive opportunities to evaluate and enhance existing business processes in ways that have not been seen since the early 1990s,” says Jyoti Lalchandani, IDC’s group vice president and managing director for the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa.
The abundant opportunities presented by artificial intelligence will feature prominently when the ICT industry’s leading vendors and most influential end users gather at Dubai’s Hilton Al Habtoor City on February 26-27 next year for the IDC Middle East CIO Summit 2020.
Running under the theme ‘The Race to Reinvent: Connecting Leaders to Empower Digital Transformation’, the event will represent the region’s largest ever gathering of CIOs, with more than 500 delegates expected to attend.
Four artificial intelligence (AI) partners will be on hand to showcase the very latest developments in this exciting technology, while respected global CIOs from across the vertical spectrum will be in attendance to share case studies around their own digital transformation exploits and answer questions from their peers in the region.
Combining expert insights, dedicated LoB sessions, industry-focused tracks, unrivaled networking opportunities, and a series of specialist training bootcamps, the IDC Middle East CIO Summit 2020 promises to provide the perfect platform for end users to benchmark their DX progress and for the industry’s leading ICT players to demonstrate their commitment to helping these organizations in their race to reinvent.
E-Business
Kaspersky Brings AI-driven Context to Cloud Workload Security

Kaspersky has updated its Cloud Workload Security (CWS) offering, introducing AI-powered workload analysis, enhanced integrations and performance optimisations designed to help organisations better secure complex cloud and hybrid environments.

The latest update brings integration with OpenAI API in the Kaspersky Container Security (KCS) part of the offering, also resulting in the creation of a new Advanced Pro license within the product.
The new capability provides contextual descriptions of detected vulnerabilities and potential risks, helping accelerate investigations, reduce knowledge gaps and support faster decision-making.
Designed for modern DevOps and hybrid cloud environments, Kaspersky CWS provides centralised visibility across workloads, Kubernetes clusters and cloud platforms, while supporting runtime protection, shift-left security practices and regulatory compliance requirements.
AI-driven visibility and improved workload protection
The update allows organisations to enrich container image scanning results with automated explanations and risk context generated by third-party large language models integrated via OpenAI API. By transforming technical scan data into actionable insights, the feature helps teams prioritise remediation and streamline security operations.
Additional improvements include single sign-on (SSO) integration and multi-domain Active Directory support, enabling more seamless deployment across distributed enterprise environments.
To optimise performance, Kaspersky CWS now also enhances image scanning efficiency by skipping oversized images when needed and avoiding rescans of identical images within a predefined timeframe. Expanded security policy capabilities and UX/UI updates further simplify workload protection and policy management.
Enhanced protection across cloud environments
The new release also updates Light Agent components, now leveraging the latest versions of Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Windows (version 12.12) and Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Linux (version 12.4) to improve overall security and integration capabilities.
“As AI adoption accelerates across industries, organisations are increasingly relying on containerised environments – placing additional pressure on security teams.
“To help ease this burden, we introduced AI integration within Kaspersky Cloud Workload Security that enables security professionals, including those just beginning their journey in container security, to make faster decisions and gain deeper insight into potential risks and vulnerabilities,” comments Anton Rusakov-Rudenko, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Cloud & Network Security at Kaspersky.
“Combined with performance optimisations and expanded integration capabilities, the solution helps organisations to protect cloud environments more efficiently while maintaining operational resilience.”
E-Business
SARS Denies Being Hacked by Nullsec Nigeria, Hacker Group

South African Revenue Service (SARS) has dismissed claims that its systems were breached, following allegations by a hacker group that it had compromised the tax authority’s digital infrastructure.

The controversy emerged after Nullsec Nigeria, a threat actor also known as Anonymous Nigeria, claimed to have breached both SARS and the State Information Technology Agency (SITA).
The hacktivist group allegedly posted links to download what it claimed was compromised data on the Breached hacker forum on Saturday, 23 May 2026, sparking concerns over a possible cyberattack targeting government systems.
However, SARS said it had conducted a thorough investigation into the claims and found no evidence that its systems had been compromised.
“SARS continuously monitors its systems for any suspicious activity and has conducted a thorough investigation in response to these reports. These claims are false and unsubstantiated,” the revenue service said in a statement.
“At this stage, there is no evidence that SARS’s systems have been compromised. SARS wishes to reassure the public regarding the integrity of its systems.”
The tax authority stressed that safeguarding taxpayer information remains one of its core responsibilities and forms part of its broader efforts to maintain public confidence in South Africa’s tax administration system.
SARS said the “protection of taxpayer information and the security of its digital platforms” is treated as “sacrosanct”.
The agency also urged South Africans to avoid sharing unverified claims and instead rely on official channels for accurate information.
“Members of the public are urged to verify information before sharing and not to circulate unverified claims or rely on information from unofficial sources,” SARS said.
At the same time, SARS warned taxpayers to remain vigilant against phishing scams and fraudulent messages falsely claiming to be from the tax authority.
For guidance on identifying scams and phishing attempts, SARS directed the public to its official online resource page: SARS scams and phishing guidance
SARS said it would continue monitoring its digital environment and communicate any developments through official platforms should the need arise.
E-Business
Pope Calls for ‘Disarming’ of AI, Warns of “New Forms of Slavery”

Pope Leo XIV called Monday for the “disarming” of artificial intelligence in his long-awaited manifesto on the rapidly developing technology, and warned of “new forms of slavery” behind its rise.

Leo, warned against “a race for ever more powerful algorithms and larger datasets, driven by the desire to secure geopolitical or commercial dominance”.
He presented his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity) in person at the Vatican, alongside AI experts including Christopher Olah, co-founder of US giant Anthropic.
Anthropic is embroiled in a legal battle with the US military after opposing the use of its technology for lethal autonomous warfare and mass surveillance.
At the presentation, Olah said AI companies operate “inside a set of incentives and constraints that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing”.
He welcomed input from outside actors like the Catholic Church, to “push events in a better direction” saying that “the questions raised by AI are bigger than the AI research community”.
In the encyclical, Leo also sounded the alarm over AI-directed weaponry, saying it was “not permissible to entrust lethal” decisions to tech.
Leo has repeatedly clashed with the White House over the Iran war and its use of religion to justify conflict.
The “just war” theory — espoused recently by the Trump administration — was “outdated”, Leo wrote, adding that “no algorithm can make war morally acceptable”.
AI could be worth up to $4.8 trillion by 2033, a 25-fold increase in a decade, while concentrating its profits in the hands of a limited few, according to the United Nations.
“Disarming AI means freeing it from the mentality of ‘armed’ competition,” the pope wrote.
“To disarm does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity,” Leo wrote.
AI should be “human-friendly”, accessible to all, and open to discussion and debate, he added.
The head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics has made the hot-button issue a cornerstone of his papacy by dedicating to it his first encyclical — a document that lays the basis for Church teaching and longer-term debate.
The manifesto references a range of cultural giants, from Greek philosopher Plato to Beethoven and his Ninth Symphony, even citing a character from JRR Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”.
“Magnifica Humanitas” was signed on May 15, the 135th anniversary of an 1891 encyclical by Leo XIII, which laid the foundations of the Church’s social doctrine during the Industrial Revolution.
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