GITEX 2025 – A Glorious Scrummage

GITEX has become a proper trade show.

• GITEX is unusual in that it gets busier as the week progresses, demonstrating that interest in technology in the Middle East continues to grow as it capitalises on European malaise, as well as the raw commodities that it has in abundance that are ideal for AI.
• GITEX is one of the leading technology shows in the Middle East and has now clearly outgrown its home in Dubai World Trade Centre, as all of the halls were rammed with both exhibitors and visitors, which only got more crowded and chaotic as the week progressed.
• The level of interest from overseas is growing rapidly, and there were visitors and exhibitors from all over the world, including Silicon Valley, where people had flown in specifically for the event.
• The show is a mix of CES, MWC, Computex, Government and petrochemicals all rolled into one and as such offers a pretty good cross section of where the region currently is and where it plans to go in the coming 5 to 10 years.
• Most striking of all were the government stands that were even bigger and more luxurious than show-leader e& but to be fair, UAE government entities have already implemented a high level of digitisation.
• For example, I applied for my permanent residency on WhatsApp and only use one app to interface with the state when I need to register my car, pay my utilities, parking and petrol, renew my driving licence, check the status of my property title deed and so on.
• As a result, I have not made a physical visit or interfaced with a human representative of the UAE Federal government in over 5 years, and yet my affairs remain in good order.
• What the large government stands indicate is that there is plenty of capital to invest and that most of the investment is being made by state-owned entities.
• This is what has driven the level of interest from foreign companies in the region, as well as a crop of local companies and start-ups.
• This is why the commercial area of the show was so busy, and explains why the show will move to the much larger 2020 Expo site in 2026.
• In one area where the show was unremarkable was the robots, which, just like in every other show I have been to in the last few years, demonstrate just how early we are in the evolution of robotics, as humans are still better, faster and cheaper at every task the robots are asked to perform, even in demonstration.
• GITEX 2025 also had a specific geopolitical angle as Western pariahs Iran and Moscow all had stands tucked away in dark corners, and the news that Ericsson will upgrade e&’s core network is highly significant.
• This is because to date, e&’s superb 4G and 5G networks have all been built by Huawei but now the core network will be supplied by Ericsson.
• When it comes to network security, the core is by far the most important piece, which is a further demonstration of the region’s pivot away from China and towards the USA and the West.
• Furthermore, while there was AI everywhere, it was much more practical than the simple pitch of just building capacity.
• For example, e& was showing how it is enabling a network of drones with AI on board to accelerate and improve the emergency response, while Honeywell was demonstrating edge AI being used in cameras to analyse events in a petrochemical installation to ensure safety and timely maintenance.
• Behind the scenes, here is Qualcomm, which is supplying the silicon and the software tools that enable models to run on edge devices and send alerts directly to the control room.
• This is a much easier and cheaper way of managing remote installations in the middle of the desert or 20 miles offshore in the Persian Gulf.
• 10 years ago, when I visited GITEX, only half of the halls were open, and a good proportion of the stands were simply resellers and retailers, while the rest were purely sales and marketing-driven.
• The region has come a long way in that time, and the promise is that it is going to go much further in the next 10.