As artificial intelligence reshapes surveillance and operational monitoring across the Middle East, data infrastructure providers are increasingly positioning storage as a strategic foundation for digital resilience and smart-city innovation.
Video Data Explosion Meets AI Analytics
Video surveillance systems across the region are generating unprecedented data volumes, and organizations are deploying AI-powered analytics at scale. Infrastructure strategy has become a critical enabler of both operational efficiency and data sovereignty.
“Video is evolving from passive surveillance into searchable, decision-ready intelligence,” said Sameer Bhatia, Senior Regional Director for India, the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa at Seagate Technology. “That transformation changes the requirements for the underlying data infrastructure, particularly around scale, resilience, retention, and compliance.”
Bhatia noted Seagate’s partnerships focus on helping organizations address the explosive growth of video data as AI adds metadata, summaries, analytics, and operational context to every frame captured. “More than 75% of organizations expect their video data to at least double over the next five years. That’s exactly why these collaborations matter now.”
UAE’s Smart Infrastructure Ambitions Create Opportunity
The UAE market presents significant growth opportunities as government and enterprise organizations continue investing heavily in smart infrastructure, digital transformation, and AI-driven operations.
“The UAE is investing ambitiously in smart infrastructure and national innovation. Our role is to help organizations build robust and scalable data foundations for AI-enabled video and sensor-driven environments,” Bhatia said.
Seagate is showcasing storage infrastructure designed to support AI-powered video analytics across use cases including smart city surveillance, retail operations, and critical infrastructure monitoring. The company continues to advance architectures that support local control of sensitive data, particularly in regulated and mission-critical environments.
“Data sovereignty, governance, and compliance are increasingly non-negotiable requirements for organizations operating critical infrastructure and public sector services,” Bhatia emphasized.
Supporting Public Sector Resilience and Governance
Seagate works with the public sector through a broader ecosystem of enterprise partners, systems integrators, and customers supporting government-adjacent and critical sector environments. Public sector organizations globally face rapidly increasing volumes of sensitive data — from citizen records and archives to telemetry generated by smart infrastructure platforms.
“Our focus is on delivering storage platforms engineered for mission-critical workloads,” Bhatia explained. “That includes capabilities designed to support governance, auditability, security, and long-life infrastructure planning.”
The UAE’s national focus on innovation and smart city development closely aligns with the broader industry shift toward treating video and sensor data as a scalable intelligence layer rather than merely archived footage.
AI Drives New Infrastructure Requirements
Enterprise and critical sector organizations are under increasing pressure to handle larger data volumes for longer periods while extracting operational insights faster and more securely.
“AI is accelerating the transition from ‘record and review’ to ‘search, summarize, and act,'” Bhatia said.
To support this shift, Seagate helps customers build scalable edge-to-cloud data architectures capable of handling growing video workloads — including automated alerts, investigations, compliance requirements, and operational analytics.
“Processing data closer to the edge helps reduce latency while supporting local control of sensitive data,” Bhatia noted. “That’s becoming increasingly important in regulated industries and critical infrastructure environments.”
One of the UAE’s strongest differentiators is the speed at which public and private sector stakeholders align around national technology goals.
“As AI transforms passive data into operational intelligence, organizations will need coordinated ecosystem development across infrastructure, systems integration, governance, and long-term skills planning,” Bhatia concluded.
Source: Computer Weekly
