Page 117 - SAMENA Trends - June-July 2025

TECHNOLOGY UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

Sri Lanka Explores AI Collaboration with Singapore at Asia Tech x 2025

Deputy Minister of Digital Economy Eranga the Asia Tech x Singapore 2025 Summit, EXPO, where they held key discussions
Weeraratne led a Sri Lankan delegation to held from May 27–29 at the Singapore with representatives of AI Singapore. The
delegation was received by Laurence Liew,
Director of AI Innovation, who presented AI
Singapore’s work in research, technology,
innovation, governance, and products. A
notable highlight was the demonstration of
“SeaLion v3”, a flagship AI product, which
drew strong interest from the Sri Lankan
side. The two parties also discussed a
proposed MoU to strengthen bilateral
collaboration, coordinated through the Sri
Lanka High Commission in Singapore. AI
solutions in development for Sri Lanka,
including a gemstone color grading tool
and Sinhala speech recognition system,
were also reviewed. Joining the Deputy
Minister were High Commissioner
Senarath Dissanayake, Head of Chancery
Ahamed Razee, Digital Economy Advisor
Sumudu Rathnayaka, and ICTA Director
Harsha Purasinghe. Officials noted the
engagement as a step forward in enhancing
international cooperation in AI, aligned with
Sri Lanka’s digital transformation goals.

Saudi Fund to fuel AI Ambitions with Humain

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF)
took the wraps off a new company focused
on AI development, as part of the nation’s
push to become a global competitive hub
in the field. PIF stated the entity, called
Humain, will invest across the AI value
chain. It will provide a range of services,
products and tools, including next-
generation data centres, infrastructure,
cloud capabilities and advanced AI
models. It will also offer one of the world’s
“most powerful” multimodal Arabic
large language models. Launched by PIF
chairman and the country’s Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman, Humain builds on
his long-standing goal for Saudi Arabia to
become a global centre for data and AI, as
well as contributing to a wider push around
the technology sector. PIF explained its
companies are actively investing in building of three continents”. The investment fund and regional hub, Humain added it will
an AI ecosystem and fostering international argued this enables large volumes of data look to incorporate and develop AI across
partnerships, allowing partners to “benefit to be processed, while it further pointed to a number of strategic sectors, including
from Saudi Arabia’s value proposition a tech-savvy population which supports AI energy, healthcare, manufacturing and
including its strategic location at the nexus research and innovation. Serving as a global financial services.

117 JUNE-JULY 2025