16 January 2026 11:57 am
IT services spend in MENA set to reach up to 28% of total tech budgets

IT services spend in MENA set to reach up to 28% of total tech budgets

Dec 24, 2025

Close-up of a hand reaching for a smartphone placed on a red railing outdoors. by Rohit Sharma via pexels

.

IT services spend in MENA set to reach up to 28% of total tech budgets

DUBAI 
IT services spend in MENA set to reach up to 28% of total tech budgets

 

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is entering a decisive, services-led growth phase in its IT sector, as enterprises and governments accelerate large-scale digital transformation initiatives, says a report.

Investments in cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), data centres, and cybersecurity are reshaping technology priorities, with implementation, integration, and managed services gaining prominence over traditional software-led models.

Industry analysis by Grand View Research (GVR) reveals that IT services currently account for around 21–22% of total IT spending across MENA, a share expected to rise to between 26% and 28% by the end of the decade. The region’s professional IT services market, valued at $33.9 billion (Dh124.5 billion) in 2024, is forecast to grow to nearly $58.3 billion (Dh214 billion) by 2030, registering a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 9.5%.

Sourav Bhanja, Middle East Head of GVR, said: “Many B2B IT services firms in the region continue to underinvest in digital engagement. Professional platforms such as LinkedIn remain underutilised, while company websites often lack strong case studies, sector-specific storytelling, and clear positioning.”

Government-led digitalisation programmes, sovereign cloud deployments, smart city initiatives, and national data strategies, coupled with rising enterprise adoption across sectors such as banking and financial services, healthcare, energy, logistics, and public infrastructure, are driving this shift. As hyperscalers and global technology firms expand their regional footprint, demand for localised integration, migration, and managed services continues to accelerate.

Bhanja also emphasised the importance of leadership visibility in the region’s competitive IT market: “Technical capability alone is no longer enough. Firms that combine deep technical expertise with consistent marketing, strong leadership visibility, and clear communication of value are the ones most likely to succeed in the MENA market.”

The analysis highlights that with growing competition among IT services providers, market visibility and differentiation have emerged as critical growth drivers. Integrated, always-on digital marketing strategies are increasingly vital, as many B2B IT services firms underutilise channels such as LinkedIn, websites, thought leadership content, newsletters, blogs, infographics, and short-form video to engage decision-makers.

Market data also indicates a broader shift towards digital-first engagement. Digital advertising spend in the Middle East, estimated at $32 billion in 2024, is projected to rise sharply to $81.4 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 16.7%. In contrast, the regional events and conferences market is expected to expand at a more modest 7.1% CAGR, reflecting changing enterprise marketing priorities.

Grand View Research concluded that IT services firms combining technical depth with strong market communication, data-driven marketing, and visible leadership will be best positioned to capture the next phase of growth across MENA. – TradeArabia News Service

Sustainability trends for 2026

Sustainability trends for 2026

Dec 23, 2025

A breathtaking view of Europe from space showcasing the Mediterranean Sea and atmospheric patterns.  by Zelch Csaba via pexels

.

Sustainability trends for 2026: From boardroom decisions to real-world systems

.

By

As we approach 2026, sustainability is starting to function more as a core business discipline rather than a standalone initiative. The public, private, and civic sectors are applying sustainability strategies to improve energy efficiency, reduce operating costs, strengthen supply chain resilience, and manage long-term risk — much of which is supported by advances in circularity, modern energy systems, artificial intelligence (AI), and emerging quantum technologies.

But progress requires coordination, credible data, and solutions designed to scale. These needs are increasingly impacting the priorities of our customers and partners, and as a result, are now firmly on the boardroom agenda. And across sectors, organizations are incorporating sustainability decisions into operational and technology decisions in response to changing market conditions and AI-era innovations. Here are the trends we expect to take shape in the year ahead.

  1. Sustainability becomes a more structured and strategic business discipline.

    Organizations are increasingly treating sustainability as a core business priority — integrating energy efficiency, energy security, operational resilience, and circularity into day-to-day operations and long-term planning.

    In parallel, global standards and reporting practices are becoming more aligned — particularly for multinational organizations navigating different rules and requirements. Frameworks such as the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) and the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) are converging toward clearer guidance on sustainability-related reporting. While approaches vary by jurisdiction, disclosure is now common practice among large enterprises. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 91 percent of large companies now disclose sustainability-related information.

    At Cisco, sustainability is one component of our business strategy — helping to inform how we design products and build partnerships to improve efficiency, circularity, and system performance. This approach is reflected in our investment strategy as well, including support for innovators such as CorPower Ocean, whose wave energy technologies represent promising new models for reliable, clean power generation.

  2. Circularity advances from recycling to design-led systems thinking.

    Circularity is becoming an integral part of design and operations strategy — shaping decisions across material selection, engineering, manufacturing, and product life cycle planning. Organizations are moving beyond traditional end-of-life recycling and embedding circularity earlier in the design process — reducing waste upfront, extending useful life, and keeping materials in use longer. Emerging tools such as digital twins allow teams to model product life cycles, evaluate material impacts, and plan for reuse before anything is built — making circular design more practical to implement and embed into everyday engineering decisions. At Cisco, we are proud to be at the forefront of this shift. We recently reached our goal of embedding Circular Design Principles into 100 percent of new products and packaging, demonstrating how circularity is becoming a core sustainability capability.

  3. Innovation scales across systems, from secure grid modernization to microgrids.

    After years of pilots, innovation is being deployed more broadly across both large-scale infrastructure and localized solutions — from smart buildings to neighborhood-level microgrids. Public sector modernization programs, rising resilience requirements, and the need for secure, reliable energy systems are accelerating this transition.

    At Cisco, we are supporting this shift through secure, scalable networking and smart building technologies — along with continued investment in energy-efficient design. Cisco Silicon One, for example, delivers industry-leading performance per watt — helping organizations modernize infrastructure with lower energy consumption and greater capacity. These advances enable utilities and communities alike to deploy energy solutions that are more reliable, resilient, secure, and ready for the future.

  4. AI continues to reshape the energy equation.

    As enterprises scale AI workloads, electricity demand is rising. Data center grid demand in the United States alone is forecast to nearly triple by 2030. AI-optimized servers, which currently represent about 21 percent of data center electricity usage, could account for 44 percent by 2030 — placing new demands on secure and resilient energy infrastructure.

    These trends are prompting organizations to rethink efficiency, load management, and the infrastructure required to support AI at scale. Cisco is helping customers prepare for this shift by optimizing networks and operations for greater efficiency, visibility, and security, so that infrastructure is ready to support increasingly complex workloads.

  5. Quantum moves from concept to preparation.

    Quantum computing remains an emerging field, but 2026 marks a shift from curiosity to preparation. Organizations are beginning to plan for quantum-safe networks, next-generation cryptography, and early simulation capabilities that could eventually accelerate advances in materials science, energy systems, and climate modeling.

    The priority now is readiness. That means building infrastructure and security practices that can evolve as quantum technologies mature. Industry partnerships, including Cisco’s collaboration with IBM to develop fault-tolerant quantum systems, reflect early steps toward this future as organizations focus on long-term security, resilience, and trust.

Looking ahead, progress across all these areas will depend on deeper collaboration across industries, governments, and communities, and on technology choices designed for longevity, security, and adaptability. We anticipate that more organizations will integrate sustainability considerations into core planning as they modernize infrastructure and prepare for emerging technologies.

The organizations that lead will be those that integrate sustainability into core planning, modernize infrastructure with intention, and prepare today for the technologies that will shape tomorrow.

At Cisco, we remain focused on enabling that future by reducing environmental impact, strengthening resilience, and helping our customers design systems that are secure, adaptable, and built to perform as demands evolve.

Authors

Avatar

Mary de Wysocki, SVP & Chief Sustainability Officer

Chief Sustainability Office

Sustainability starts with knowledge

Sustainability starts with knowledge

Dec 22, 2025

Three people engaging in a discussion about recycling at a blackboard. By fauxels via pexels

.

Sustainability starts with knowledge

By Dr Erik Mackie

a large building with ivy growing on the side of itPhoto by Sofia Puchkova on Unsplash

Leading academics from the University of Cambridge and Lund University came together for an international research conference on “Knowledge for Sustainable Development: Breaking Barriers to Climate Solutions.”

The event, held in Lund and online, attracted 277 participants from universities, government agencies, and industry to share insights and accelerate climate action. The conference was co-organised by Lund’s Sustainability Forum and Cambridge Zero.

A small delegation of academics from Cambridge travelled to Lund to participate in the conference in-person.

A globe, a lightbulb, a plant, Justicia. Light blue background. Collage of illustrations.

Setting the Stage for Change

The day opened with a keynote from Prof Lars J. Nilsson (Lund University), who outlined Europe’s deep decarbonisation pathways for carbon-intensive industries such as steel and cement production, and the petrochemical industry.

He highlighted the scale of structural changes required in these hard-to-decarbonise sectors, and the reliance on critical raw materials which are crucial for batteries and other technologies.

Stressing that incremental improvements will not suffice, Nilsson called for bold policy frameworks and technological innovation to drive the transition to net-zero emissions. He also championed the role of international bodies such as the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change, which includes members from both Cambridge and Lund, to provide robust scientific advice for the achievement of the EU’s climate goals.

Asked about research priorities for joint collaborations between Cambridge and Lund, Nilsson listed the top three issues to tackle as: petrochemicals (including plastics), critical minerals, and future power systems for data centres.

 Law and Climate: A Double-Edged Sword

Cambridge’s Prof Harro van Asselt, Hatton Professor of Climate Law in the Department of Land Economy, delivered the second keynote on the evolving role of the law in strengthening climate action.

He explored how legal systems can both enable and obstruct progress on climate action. Law can be part of the solution, for example through legally binding emission targets, but can also be part of the problem, through outdated frameworks that lock in unsustainable practices. Van Asselt also pointed to difficulties in the UN climate negotiations, which are hampered by the consensus-based process and obstructionist behaviour, and struggle to deliver on implementation of mitigation and finance. He urged legal creativity and reform.

“Law is a double-edged sword in that it can hinder or facilitate the climate and energy transition. There is a need for legal imagination to reform unsustainable legal frameworks and strengthen the legal tools at our disposal to pursue deep decarbonisation and build climate resilience.”

Credit: Lund University

Credit: Lund University

Credit: Lund University

Credit: Lund University

New West Bank settlement would make a Palestinian state impossible

New West Bank settlement would make a Palestinian state impossible

Dec 19, 2025

Proposed picture of the future: Circle of sneakers on cobblestone pavement representing diversity and urban fashion. by Ingo Joseph via Pexels

.

Israel’s plan for massive new West Bank settlement would make a Palestinian state impossible

Leonie Fleischmann, City St George’s, University of London

Israel OKs settlement project that could divide West Bank : NPR

End of a viable Palestinian state: Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich announces the new development plan. AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg

.

The Israeli government has approved a plan for construction of a massive new settlement bloc in the controversial E1 area in the occupied West Bank.

In reviving a project first proposed in 1994, which will comprise about 3,500 new dwellings in a line across the West Bank, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich laid bare the intentions of his government. He declared that “approval of construction plans in E1 buries the idea of a Palestinian state, and continues the many steps we are taking on the ground as part of the de facto sovereignty plan”.

You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, here.

E1 (“East 1”) refers to 12 square kilometres of unsettled land east of Jerusalem. It sits inside the boundaries of the third most populous Israeli settlement in the West Bank, Ma’ale Adumim.

In 1975, Israel expropriated 30 sq km of land on which seven Palestinian villages had once stood. Here they built Ma’ale Adumim, one of three Israeli settlement blocs that form an “outer ring” around the Israeli-defined municipal boundaries of Jerusalem.

Israeli authorities refer to these blocs as “facts on the ground”. They were initiated in the West Bank by the Israeli government after the 1967 War to ensure that Israeli population centres were protected from potential attacks.

Today, almost 40,000 Israelis live in Ma’ale Adumim – largely secular Israelis and diaspora Jews who have moved to Israel. Far from the makeshift Israeli outposts that are scattered across the rural West Bank, Ma’ale Adumim was designated a city by Israel in 2015. It is considered by the majority of Israeli Jews to be a permanently protected settlement bloc, which will be retained through land swaps in any final agreement with Palestinians.

The E1 development plan would involve a significant expansion of the existing settlement. All settlement building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank is deemed illegal under international law, but the E1 plans are particularly controversial.

At the heart of the controversy is the viability of a Palestinian state. Israeli construction in E1 would cut the West Bank into two separate parts, rendering it impossible to establish a contiguous Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

In addition, according to an objection lodged by the Israeli pressure group Peace Now, Israeli construction in E1 would negatively affect the economic development of a future Palestinian state.

Its objection argues the E1 area is essential for expansion of an urban metropolis necessary for economic growth, and is the only land in East Jerusalem suitable for further development in the Palestinian part of the city. It states that E1 should therefore be left for Palestinian rather than Israeli development.

Political threat

The plan to develop E1 was first proposed in 1994 by Israel’s then-prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, to make sure Ma’ale Adumim was part of a “united Jerusalem”. This was subsequently reaffirmed by Shimon Peres during his prime ministership in 1996, as part of proposed territorial swaps in the framework of a permanent peace agreement.

In 2005, those plans were frozen after the US administration under George W. Bush told Israel that settlement in E1 would “contravene American policy”.

Map of the West Bank.
The proposed E1 development, linking up with the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, would make a Palestinian state based on contiguous land in the West Bank impossible.
Honest Reporting, CC BY-SA

The plan was reignited by Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in 2012, in retaliation for the United Nations’ extension of non-member status to Palestine. But it was then put on hold for eight years due to international pressure.

In 2020, a week ahead of the third national elections held in Israel in a single year, Netanyahu pledged to revive the E1 project, with the hope of securing votes and to court the ultra-nationalist parties into a potential coalition. In 2022, Netanyahu renewed the E1 construction plans, weeks before then-US president Joe Biden was due to visit Israel.

Opposition and support

Each time the plans have been proposed, the decision to advance construction has been met with both internal and international condemnation. On June 9 2023, the planning hearing was “indefinitely” postponed following a call between Netanyahu and Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken.

In response to the most recent announcement to reinstate the plans, the European Union put out a statement expressing concern. It urged Israel “to desist from taking this decision forward, noting its far-reaching implications and the need to consider action to protect the viability of the two-state solution”.

However, Donald Trump now appears to be breaking with the position of previous US administrations. It was recently reported in the Jerusalem Post that the Trump administration supports the reactivation of the development plans. A spokesperson for the US State Department said “a stable West Bank keeps Israel secure and is in line with this administration’s goal to achieve peace in the region”.

Israel’s latest attempt to initiate construction in E1 shows that, while the plans have consistently been delayed, they have never been abandoned. The question is why did Smotrich, with the apparent approval of Netanyahu, make this announcement now?

The answer is most likely that, with the international focus firmly on the continued assault on Gaza, the Israeli government believes it has the breathing space to press ahead with its commitment to building settlements across the West Bank.

Alongside the proposed Israeli takeover of Gaza City, the promise by Smotrich that 2025 would be Israel’s “Year of Sovereignty” – and with it the end of a future Palestinian state – appears to be coming ever closer.The Conversation

Leonie Fleischmann, Senior Lecturer in International Politics, City St George’s, University of London

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Cement “breathes in” and stores millions of tons of CO₂ a year

Cement “breathes in” and stores millions of tons of CO₂ a year

Dec 18, 2025

Image credit to MIT News

.

How cement “breathes in” and stores millions of tons of CO₂ a year

.

New analysis provides the first national, bottom-up estimate of cement’s natural carbon dioxide uptake across buildings and infrastructure.

.

Andrew Paul Laurent | MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub

.

Low-altitude aerial photo of buildings in Manhattan at twilight

The world’s most common construction material has a secret. Cement, the “glue” that holds concrete together, gradually “breathes in” and stores millions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air over the lifetimes of buildings and infrastructure.

A new study from the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub quantifies this process, carbon uptake, at a national scale for the first time. Using a novel approach, the research team found that the cement in U.S. buildings and infrastructure sequesters over 6.5 million metric tons of CO2 annually. This corresponds to roughly 13 percent of the process emissions — the CO2 released by the underlying chemical reaction — in U.S. cement manufacturing. In Mexico, the same building stock sequesters about 5 million tons a year.

But how did the team come up with those numbers?

Scientists have known how carbon uptake works for decades. CO2 enters concrete or mortar — the mixture that glues together blocks, brick, and stones — through tiny pores, reacts with the calcium-rich products in cement, and becomes locked into a stable mineral called calcium carbonate, or limestone.

The chemistry is well-known, but calculating the magnitude of this at scale is not. A concrete highway in Dallas sequesters CO2 differently than Mexico City apartments made from concrete masonry units (CMUs), also called concrete blocks or, colloquially, cinder blocks. And a foundation slab buried under the snow in Fairbanks, Alaska, “breathes in” CO2 at a different pace entirely.

As Hessam AzariJafari, lead author and research scientist in the MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, explains, “Carbon uptake is very sensitive to context. Four major factors drive it: the type of cement used, the product we make with it — concrete, CMUs, or mortar — the geometry of the structure, and the climate and conditions it’s exposed to. Even within the same structure, uptake can vary five-fold between different elements.”

As no two structures sequester CO2 in the same way, estimating uptake nationwide would normally require simulating an array of cement-based elements: slabs, walls, beams, columns, pavements, and more. On top of that, each of those has its own age, geometry, mixture, and exposure condition to account for.

Seeing that this approach would be like trying to count every grain of sand on a beach, the team took a different route. They developed hundreds of archetypes, typical designs that could stand in for different buildings and pieces of infrastructure. It’s a bit like measuring the beach instead by mapping out its shape, depth, and shoreline to estimate how much sand usually sits in a given spot.

With these archetypes in hand, the team modeled how each one sequesters CO2 in different environments and how common each is across every state in the United States and Mexico. In this way, they could estimate not just how much CO2 structures sequester, but why those numbers differ.

Two factors stood out. The first was the “construction trend,” or how the amount of new construction had changed over the previous five years. Because it reflects how quickly cement products are being added to the building stock, it shapes how much cement each state consumes and, therefore, how much of that cement is actively carbonating. The second was the ratio of mortar to concrete, since porous mortars sequester CO2 an order of magnitude faster than denser concrete.

In states where mortar use was higher, the fraction of CO2 uptake relative to process emissions was noticeably greater. “We observed something unique about Mexico: Despite using half the cement that the U.S. does, the country has three-quarters of the uptake,” notes AzariJafari. “This is because Mexico makes more use of mortars and lower-strength concrete, and bagged cement mixed on-site. These practices are why their uptake sequesters about a quarter of their cement manufacturing emissions.”

While care must be taken for structural elements that use steel reinforcement, as uptake can accelerate corrosion, it’s possible to enhance the uptake of many elements without negative impacts.

Randolph Kirchain, director of the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub, principal research scientist in the MIT Materials Research Laboratory, and the senior author of this study, explains: “For instance, increasing the amount of surface area exposed to air accelerates uptake and can be achieved by foregoing painting or tiling, or choosing designs like waffle slabs with a higher surface area-to-volume ratio. Additionally, avoiding unnecessarily stronger, less-porous concrete mixtures than required would speed up uptake while using less cement.”

“There is a real opportunity to refine how carbon uptake from cement is represented in national inventories,” AzariJafari comments. “The buildings around us and the concrete beneath our feet are constantly ‘breathing in’ millions of tons of CO2. Nevertheless, some of the simplified values in widely used reporting frameworks can lead to higher estimates than what we observe empirically. Integrating updated science into international inventories and guidelines such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) would help ensure that reported numbers reflect the material and temporal realities of the sector.”

By offering the first rigorous, bottom-up estimation of carbon uptake at a national scale, the team’s work provides a more representative picture of cement’s environmental impact. As we work to decarbonize the built environment, understanding what our structures are already doing in the background may be just as important as the innovations we pursue moving forward. The approach developed by MIT researchers could be extended to other countries by combining global building-stock databases with national cement-production statistics. It could also inform the design of structures that safely maximize uptake.

The findings were published Dec. 15 in the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Joining AzariJafari and Kirchain on the paper are MIT researchers Elizabeth Moore of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the MIT Climate Project and former postdocs Ipek Bensu Manav SM ’21, PhD ’24 and Motahareh Rahimi, along with Bruno Huet and Christophe Levy from the Holcim Innovation Center in France.

*

*