INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGY

Tareq Masoud, Country Manager, UAE, Snowflake

nowflake, the AI Data Cloud company, has launched Snowflake for Startups, an initiative designed to help founders build and scale enterprise-grade AI applications on its AI Data Cloud.

The programme provides startups with access to product capabilities, technical support, go-to-market resources and strategic relationships with venture capital firms.

The initiative also aligns with the‘ We the UAE 2031’ vision, which aims to strengthen the UAE’ s position as a global economic hub and create an innovation-led environment that supports entrepreneurs and globally competitive businesses.

Snowflake for Startups is designed to provide UAE founders with a secure, production-ready data and AI foundation, enabling them to address the performance, governance and trust requirements of large organisations from the outset.

“ The UAE has embraced AI as a core economic driver, and startups here are building to compete globally from the outset,” said Tareq Masoud, Country Manager, UAE, Snowflake.“ Snowflake for Startups is designed to meet that ambition by giving founders access to the same secure, scalable data and AI foundation used by large enterprises. With AI adoption at around 84 % across organisations in the region, the focus is on building AI that is ready for real-world use and long-term scale.”

Ash Mugridge, RVP of Digital Natives & SMBs, EMEA, Snowflake, said:“ Across EMEA, we’ re seeing a new generation of startups designing for scale from the outset. Snowflake for Startups enables founders to focus on innovation while we provide the performance, governance, and reliability they need to grow.”

Snowflake for Startups aims to simplify access to managed AI capabilities for early-stage companies. Through self-service access to enterprise-grade AI infrastructure within Snowflake’ s environment, startups can build, test and deploy AI applications and agents without having to manage complex underlying infrastructure.

Startups can also use Cortex REST API, a secure and unified API layer designed to simplify switching between leading AI models.

The programme combines marketplace access, startup acceleration and venture investment. Founders can gain exposure to more than 12,600 potential customers through Snowflake Marketplace, while the Snowflake Startup Accelerator provides credits, engineering support and go-to-market guidance. Snowflake Ventures provides access to potential investment and strategic backing.

UAE online investment platform Sarwa is using Snowflake’ s AI Data Cloud to create a shared data foundation supporting reporting and dayto-day operations.

The platform brings together information from Sarwa’ s databases, front end, customer service platform and other systems within a centralised environment. This allows teams spanning reporting, operations, marketing and compliance to access the information they need while providing a foundation for the company’ s evolving data requirements.

“ Snowflake has given us the ability to bring together data from across the business and make it accessible to the teams that need it,” said Jad Sayegh, CTO & Co-founder, Sarwa.“ It allows us to use the right tools for different parts of our stack while connecting those workflows at the data layer. This has empowered teams across the company to work with data more effectively, while allowing us to evolve our infrastructure as our needs change.” •

30 www. intelligenttechchannels. com / middle-east-africa