By 
Ahmed Tayeh, the Partner Sales Manager for Middle East and Turkey at Cloudera, says companies must organise their AI developments around data and not vice versa
How did the industry and your company fare in 2024, and what were the key highlights?
This year has seen significant developments within the technology space, particularly in artificial intelligence. While generative AI (GenAI) garnered attention, the focus has been stronger on machine learning, with enterprises increasingly shaping their strategies around these two areas. This growing demand has created a ripple effect, leading to more partners joining forces with Cloudera.
Our partners have been instrumental in bringing leads and opportunities, particularly in regions where we previously had limited presence, such as Africa, East Africa, Saudi Arabia, and the greater Gulf. We have also observed a rising demand for data management and the modernisation of data analytics workloads. Whether refreshing data lakes or building lake houses, much of this momentum has come through our partner community.
These two key areas—AI adoption and data modernisation—have driven significant growth, particularly across core industry verticals such as telecoms, the public sector, and banking and financial services. Global studies indicate that the AI sector could contribute a staggering US$15.7tr to the global economy by 2030, underscoring the immense potential ahead.
As enterprises continue to advance, we anticipate double-digit Cloudera technology uptake, driven by the exponential increase in data generation and the surging demand for AI, which remains intrinsically tied to data. We are strengthening alignment with our partners and working closely with existing and new customers to address this evolving landscape. Together, we are tackling core challenges and delivering value across critical use cases in the telecom, banking, and oil and gas sectors.
At the heart of our strategy is an enhanced focus on our ecosystem—helping customers unlock value through AI and Lake House technologies. As our customer base grows, we deepen our relationships by expanding our footprint within existing engagements while attracting new clients through a commitment to offering choice and an open, future-ready approach.
What opportunities do you foresee for 2025, and how do you plan to leverage them?
Foreseeing the opportunities for 2025, we have three go-to-market offerings:
- Hybrid Solutions: We are collaborating with our ecosystem to help data- and AI-driven customers achieve more with less by leveraging cloud technologies. Cloudera is pivotal in this journey across the GCC, Turkey, Africa, and Saudi Arabia. While we compete with hyperscalers, our advantage lies in our openness and ability to leverage their cloud infrastructure and compute elasticity.
- Growth in demand for analytics: We are partnering with customers and partners to modernise traditional monolithic analytics workloads and transition them to a more flexible lake house model. This approach has gained significant traction and strong market adoption.
- Generative AI: We enable customers to understand the need for platforms like Cloudera, where data governance remains local while leveraging regionally available hyperscalers. This setup accelerates applications such as ChatGPT, document summarisation, and call centre optimisation, delivering tangible results within six to ten weeks.
We are well-positioned to deliver value and drive growth in 2025 by aligning our offerings with evolving market needs.
What significant challenges did you encounter in 2024, and how did you address them?
One of the challenges we’ve encountered this year is that many customers don’t view data at a strategic level, considering data is the DNA of every organisation. We’re working with our partners to help customers understand that starting small is possible, but making the right technology investments is crucial. This starts with trusted data.
Companies must organise their AI developments around data and not vice versa. Therefore, we must view data as a key part of our strategy rather than just a day-to-day tool, which we address through a strategic approach to data management and AI integration.
Which emerging technologies do you believe will be in high demand in 2025, and why?
In 2025, everything related to the GenAI ecosystem—such as agentic AI, embedded AI, AI governance, machine learning ops, and supporting technologies—will be in high demand. Our strength lies in data mesh and fabrics, enabling seamless integration of structured, unstructured, and semi-structured data across the enterprise with a unified governance and security framework. Efficiently storing complex data types, like surveillance feeds or spatial imagery, will also be critical for meeting sustainability goals. With our proprietary object storage, Ozone, businesses in energy and telecommunications can store vast amounts of data cost-effectively, eliminating the need for expensive storage solutions.
Partnerships with Nvidia further strengthen our capabilities, enabling enterprises to leverage GPUs to develop AI applications like chatbots without heavy server investments. This allows private companies, such as ADIB or Emirates, to scale AI efficiently and achieve more with less. Financial institutions increasingly use AI to deepen customer relationships, as retaining existing customers is more cost-effective than acquiring new ones. For example, digital banks like Emirates NBD’s LIV have amassed $3 billion in assets by understanding millennial spending patterns and behaviours. Similarly, telecom companies are evolving into tech-driven entities, leveraging AI to improve subscriber experiences and reduce churn.
Government institutions in Dubai, like RTA and DEWA, also enhance citizen satisfaction through AI-powered feedback systems, promoting efficiency and supporting a paperless economy. By utilising these technologies and collaborating with our ecosystem, we continue to create value, attract new clients, and expand within our existing customer base through AI and Lake House solutions, ensuring we deliver scalable, open, and future-ready innovations.
What will be your primary focus areas and strategic priorities for 2025?
Our focus for 2025 can be viewed from two perspectives. From a channel standpoint, we prioritise alliances and partnerships that drive incremental growth through value creation and targeted use case adoption. This ensures our platform supports diverse use cases across the ecosystem while helping partners specialise in key areas. Strategically, our efforts center on three priorities: insulating customers from change, providing flexibility and choice, and supporting data-driven AI initiatives.
Our platform enables seamless migration, rehosting, and/or integration for customers exploring the cloud. Additionally, Lakehouse and advanced analytics are becoming critical for large organisations seeking to consolidate their operations onto a single platform. GenAI and Machine Learning (ML) remain at the core of our strategy.
Are there plans to explore new markets or introduce new products/applications to your portfolio in 2025?
Yes, we are expanding our capabilities through strategic acquisitions collaborations and continuing to develop innovative solutions. With the acquisition of Octopai, we’ve enhanced our data lineage and catalogue platform, significantly strengthening Cloudera’s metadata management capabilities globally. Our cooperation with CrewAI will also revolutionise multi-agent-driven workflows, unlocking new organisational efficiencies.
Our technology direction is centred on four key areas: continuing to evolve our multi-hybrid platform, which provides customers with freedom, flexibility, and portability; building our data management and governance across the entire enterprise data estate; developing AI and ML apps to accelerate customers’ time to value; and ensuring Cloudera remains an extremely reliable, secure, and scalable performance platform.
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