DUBAI: Global investors with the most money to deploy are among the most confident about the Gulf's economic future, a senior World Economic Forum official told Arab News.
Kelsey Goodman, head of Middle East and North Africa at the foundation, said the region's performance in recent months had sent a clear message to markets.
Goodman was speaking on the sidelines of a WEF meeting in Dubai, held ahead of the forum's annual gathering in Davos.
"I really think that resilience is the word of the year in the Gulf," she said. "At the end of the day, the fundamentals of the Gulf economy remain solid. Investors remain confident in the Gulf."
She cited recent research from the US showing that investors with the largest assets under management are some of the most confident about the region.
Goodman credited this to years of long-term planning by Gulf leaders, who have worked to diversify their economies and export routes, and to invest in sectors beyond oil.
"That has really shown that there is a future in the Gulf, and that the future is resilient," she said.
AI on everybody's lips
Asked which sector offers the strongest opportunity for foreign capital, Goodman pointed to artificial intelligence.
"I think the word on everybody's lips is AI, of course," she said.
She described the push to build AI infrastructure as a race to become the backbone of the AI revolution, and said the region was well positioned to lead it.
A new WEF report, "Powering AI at Scale," found that the region has the capacity to become a leader in the field, she added.
However, Goodman said the success of that effort would depend on getting the sustainability and resilience of data centres right.
That includes upgrading grid capacity and using AI to improve efficiency and reduce waste in the region's own energy systems, she said, so that the energy saved can be used to power the technology.
Setting the agenda
Goodman also said the region was no longer only responding to global economic trends but helping to set them.
"We're starting to see the Middle East, especially the Gulf, starting to shape in a lot of ways global economic priorities," she said.
She said this was visible in the way the region's sovereign wealth funds and large investors are choosing where to allocate capital, as well as in its investment in new industries such as advanced manufacturing.
Over the past few years, the WEF has recognised several factories in the region as advanced manufacturing "lighthouses," a designation given to what it considers some of the best manufacturing centres in the world.
Goodman named Saudi Aramco, Emirates Global Aluminium and Qatar Shell among those that have earned the recognition.
"Saudi Aramco was recognised as one of the World Economic Forum's advanced manufacturing lighthouses," she said.
She described the lighthouses as best-in-class producers and manufacturers that show "how we're taking manufacturing really into the future and really making it smart."