NTT DATA is set to launch a new AI Factory Lab in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in September 2026. The facility is designed to help enterprises move beyond AI experimentation and toward practical, production-ready deployments.
The initiative brings together NTT DATA’s AI, digital business and technology services expertise with technologies from major ecosystem partners, including Cisco and NVIDIA.
The announcement comes as organizations across the Middle East and Africa increasingly shift their focus from exploring generative AI to finding ways to deploy it securely, scale it and generate measurable business value.
From AI experimentation to production
For many enterprises, the challenge is no longer identifying what AI can do. The harder task is determining where it can deliver meaningful business outcomes and how it can be deployed responsibly at scale.
The NTT DATA AI Factory Lab is designed to address that gap.
The Riyadh facility will provide executive briefings, AI strategy workshops and hands-on experiences. Organizations will be able to identify high-impact use cases, assess potential business outcomes and explore deployment approaches.
The lab will also provide an environment where enterprises can evaluate AI capabilities before making larger production commitments.
Hani Nofal, Executive Head of Infrastructure Solutions in Middle East and Africa at NTT DATA, said organizations need a practical path from experimentation to business outcomes.
“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,” Nofal said.
A full-stack approach to enterprise AI
The facility will demonstrate AI applications across several enterprise functions.
These include employee productivity, customer experience, intelligent operations, cybersecurity, networking and software development. Industry-specific business processes will also form part of the demonstrations.
A major focus will be agentic AI.
Organizations will be able to explore how AI agents can automate workflows, support decision-making and improve both customer and employee experiences. The technology can also help enterprises extract greater value from their existing data.
This broader focus is significant. Enterprise AI increasingly requires more than access to sophisticated models. It also requires suitable infrastructure, data foundations, security controls, governance and operational visibility.
The NTT DATA AI Factory Lab aims to bring these components together within a practical environment for enterprise evaluation.
Cisco and NVIDIA strengthen the infrastructure foundation
One of the featured experiences will be the Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA.
The environment will demonstrate how enterprises can build, deploy, secure, govern and scale AI workloads using an enterprise-grade infrastructure foundation.
Cisco is expected to provide networking, security, observability and collaboration capabilities. NVIDIA will contribute accelerated computing and AI software technologies supporting workloads including generative AI, agentic AI, computer vision and digital twins.
The combination addresses an important enterprise concern: AI systems must operate within secure and manageable technology environments.
Cassie Roach, VP of Partner Sales, AI Infrastructure & Connectivity at Cisco, said the collaboration will provide organizations with a secure environment to test, refine and validate their AI strategies before committing to full-scale deployment.
Dirk Barfuss, Director of EMEA Channel at NVIDIA, said customers will be able to experience the Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA firsthand and validate high-impact AI use cases.
Riyadh becomes a regional AI testing ground
The choice of Riyadh gives the initiative a wider strategic significance.
Saudi Arabia is investing heavily in digital transformation and advanced technologies under Vision 2030. The new facility is intended to support both public and private sector organizations pursuing those objectives.
The NTT DATA AI Factory Lab will serve organizations across the broader Middle East and Africa, rather than focusing exclusively on the Saudi market.
Its location also places the initiative within Riyadh’s expanding technology and innovation ecosystem. The city is increasingly positioning itself as a regional center for digital infrastructure, AI investment and enterprise technology adoption.
For enterprises in the region, a physical environment for testing and validating AI solutions could help reduce some of the uncertainty associated with large-scale deployment.
Why the pilot-to-production transition matters
The enterprise AI market is entering a different phase.
Organizations have spent the past several years experimenting with copilots, generative AI applications and proof-of-concept projects. Attention is now moving toward integration with core business processes.
That transition introduces new requirements.
Enterprises need to understand how AI interacts with corporate data. They must also address cybersecurity, governance, compliance, networking, infrastructure and operational resilience.
Agentic AI adds another layer of complexity because AI systems can increasingly execute tasks rather than simply generate responses.
The NTT DATA AI Factory Lab therefore positions itself around a practical question: how can enterprises turn promising AI concepts into secure and scalable operational capabilities?
Part of NTT DATA’s global AI strategy
The Riyadh initiative forms part of NTT DATA’s broader AI strategy.
The company is combining consulting, infrastructure, technology services and industry-focused solutions to help organizations adopt AI responsibly and at enterprise scale.
The approach reflects an important shift in enterprise technology services. AI adoption is increasingly being treated as an end-to-end transformation challenge rather than a standalone software purchase.
For organizations across the Middle East and Africa, the new lab could provide a practical setting to assess that transformation.
The real measure of success will be adoption
The launch of the NTT DATA AI Factory Lab is significant, but the longer-term impact will depend on what happens after organizations leave the facility.
The strongest measure of success will not be the number of demonstrations conducted. It will be the number of AI initiatives that progress from evaluation into production.
Successful deployments could range from AI-powered customer experiences and intelligent operations to cybersecurity, software development and autonomous business workflows.
If the lab can consistently help enterprises identify valuable use cases, validate their technical foundations and overcome deployment barriers, it could become an important bridge between AI ambition and measurable business outcomes across the region.
For Saudi Arabia, the initiative also reinforces Riyadh’s growing role in the regional AI ecosystem and aligns with the Kingdom’s broader ambitions to use advanced technology as a driver of productivity, innovation and economic growth.