At GITEX 2025, Bassam Rached, General Manager of Technology, GBM, spoke to Veronica Martin about how the organisation is driving AI adoption and hybrid cloud security across the Middle East – with a prime focus on ethical practices and fully scalable infrastructure.
What will be your main focus or highlight at GITEX Global 2025?
“Our theme for this year is ‘Exploring a more intelligent future’. We’re placing strong emphasis on AI, hybrid cloud security, and leveraging IBM as a key partner at the core of our technology and offerings. A special focus is on Watson X, which addresses AI data management and governance, including ethical AI and responsible AI practices. This reflects both our joint initiatives with IBM and our work at GBM.
“We are also highlighting Cloud X; our proprietary solution designed for hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Cloud X helps organisations navigate the complexities of multiple cloud deployments, gain greater clarity as their business evolves, and streamline operations. Visitors to GITEX can explore how GBM solutions empower organisations to automate processes, enhance productivity, and extract actionable insights from their data.”
How does exhibiting at GITEX support your growth strategy in the Middle East?
“We’re showcasing our digital infrastructure solutions, digital business solutions, and comprehensive cybersecurity portfolio. We believe that while data and AI are driving major transformations across the region, they require a robust and scalable infrastructure to meet the growing demands of AI workloads.
“At the same time, the rise of AI and data brings heightened cyber risks, which is why we are placing special emphasis on our recently launched AI security offerings.
“By exhibiting at GITEX, we underscore our commitment to regional digital transformation and innovation, particularly in the UAE. We aim to foster collaboration between our principals, key partners, and customers, supporting the innovative solutions needed to navigate the evolving digital landscape.”
AI is a key theme for this year’s GITEX. Can you tell us more about how AI and GenAI tools are influencing the operations of regional enterprises?
“AI and generative AI are obviously the big trends right now, but what’s truly striking is how rapidly adoption is accelerating. While public generative AI tools are widely known, the real shift is happening within enterprises, particularly around enterprise-grade generative AI and agent AI.
“We’re seeing agent AI augmenting the workforce – enhancing productivity, reducing costs, and improving customer satisfaction. It’s no longer just a concept: projects we started discussing last year as prototypes and pilots are now moving into production in Abu Dhabi and other markets.
“Besides this, I would like to highlight two key points: first, building the right talent is essential for sustainable AI adoption, and second, AI is fundamentally redefining the business landscape. Companies need to ensure IT, and business teams collaborate strategically to position themselves as leaders in this emerging AI-augmented digital economy.
Can you outline GBM’s overall strategy and the key priorities driving digital transformation and AI adoption?
“Our strategy can be defined across three core areas. The first is modernisation – and when I say modernisation, I mean spanning the entire stack, from infrastructure to the automation layer, all the way up to applications. That’s point number one.
“The second area is security. I can’t emphasise this enough. With the rapid evolution of private and public cloud, the movement of data across borders, and increasingly complex IT environments, cybersecurity is becoming more critical by the day.
“The third focus is on building scalable IT infrastructure, because digital demands are constantly expanding. In fact, if I were to break it down further, I’d highlight four key priorities:
- Leverage AI to accelerate decision-making, automate processes, and enhance customer experiences.
- Focus on scalable pilot projects – for use cases that aren’t fully defined yet; scalable pilots allow experimentation, rapid learning, and iteration. The principle is: experiment, fail fast, learn, and move forward. It’s a learning process, and data readiness often lags behind expectations, so perfectionism is not the goal.
- Prioritise cybersecurity. Everyone knows about quantum computing, but not everyone is aware of the risks it introduces. Prompt engineering can have loopholes; AI models may have vulnerabilities, and other critical areas like data classification and identity access management must be carefully managed.
- Collaborate with trusted technology partners. Transformation and innovation thrive on strong partnerships. We work closely with key players like IBM, Cisco, and Broadcom. Through these collaborations and our new VCR stack, we deliver robust capabilities across AI infrastructure, cloud services, and cloud provisioning.
“In essence, our strategy blends modernisation, security, scalability, and strategic partnerships to enable organisations to innovate confidently and securely.”
Image Credit: GBM
