Snowflake Expands AI Data Cloud Footprint Into AWS UAE

(MENAFN- The Arabian Post)

Snowflake has rolled out its AI Data Cloud on Amazon Web Services' UAE region, a move designed to help enterprises build and deploy artificial intelligence workloads while keeping data residency and latency requirements in check. The expansion gives organisations operating in the Gulf access to Snowflake's platform within the AWS Middle East Region, aligning with regulatory expectations that data generated in the country can be processed locally.

The company said the launch is aimed at government bodies, financial services firms, energy producers and large conglomerates that are scaling analytics and AI programmes but face constraints around cross-border data movement. By operating directly inside the UAE region, Snowflake positions itself to support sensitive workloads such as fraud detection, predictive maintenance and large-language-model training without exporting data.

Within the industry, the development is being read as a signal that hyperscaler ecosystems are moving faster to localise advanced data services in the Middle East, where cloud adoption has accelerated alongside public-sector digital transformation strategies. Enterprises in the region have increasingly sought platforms that combine analytics, machine learning and governance in a single environment rather than stitching together multiple tools.

Snowflake's AI Data Cloud integrates data warehousing, data engineering and AI capabilities, allowing customers to analyse structured and unstructured data using SQL, Python and machine-learning frameworks. The platform's presence on AWS UAE also supports integrations with services such as Amazon SageMaker, enabling data scientists to build models directly against governed datasets.

Executives at Snowflake have framed the move as part of a broader strategy to meet customers“where their data lives”. The UAE deployment follows a pattern of regional expansions across Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America as governments tighten data-sovereignty rules. For multinational companies with regional hubs in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, local availability reduces both compliance risk and network latency.

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AWS, for its part, has invested heavily in the UAE region to attract software partners that can offer industry-grade services atop its infrastructure. The Snowflake announcement underscores the maturity of the local cloud ecosystem, where enterprise software providers now view the region as large enough to justify full platform deployments rather than limited edge offerings.

The announcement also highlights the scale of Snowflake's global momentum on AWS. The company has reported that its growth through the AWS Marketplace has doubled year on year, reflecting rising demand for consumption-based data platforms that can be procured alongside infrastructure. Snowflake has also accumulated 14 AWS Partner Awards across categories such as analytics, migration and industry solutions, signalling a deepening technical and commercial alignment between the two firms.

For customers, the UAE launch brings access to features that Snowflake has been layering into its platform as AI adoption widens. These include native support for generative AI applications, secure data sharing across organisational boundaries and fine-grained governance controls designed to limit how sensitive information is accessed by models. The ability to share data securely across accounts is seen as particularly relevant in sectors such as logistics and financial services, where ecosystems of partners need controlled access to common datasets.

Industry analysts note that competition in the cloud data platform market is intensifying, with hyperscalers and independent vendors racing to position themselves as the default foundation for enterprise AI. Snowflake's decision to prioritise regional availability is viewed as an attempt to defend market share against rivals that bundle analytics more tightly with infrastructure services.

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At the same time, customers are becoming more selective, weighing not just performance and cost but also regulatory alignment and partner ecosystems. In the Gulf, where national data policies are evolving alongside ambitious digital-economy plans, platforms that can demonstrate compliance without sacrificing innovation tend to gain traction.

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