Africa, Middle East to spend $3bn on AI – Report

The Middle East and African region will spend $3bn in 2023 to boost Artificial Intelligence capacity.

According to the most recent Worldwide Artificial Intelligence Spending Guide from International Data Corporation, this will only represent 2% of the $151.4 billion that will be spent globally on AI in 2023.

Despite this, the area was predicted to see the strongest growth rate over the following years. According to the IDC, expenditure on AI will rise at a compound annual growth rate of 29.7% from 2022 to 2026, reaching $6.4 billion in 2026.

The Senior Program Manager for software, cloud, and IT services at IDC MEA, Manish Ranjan, said, “The rapid adoption of cloud and digital transformation in MEA will result in AI being incorporated into many different products and solutions.

“Organisations across the region are investing in AI technologies and related software and services to drive greater efficiency through automation and contribute to a more agile operating environment.

“The effects of the pandemic have fueled further spending in relation to AI/ML adoption, particularly within the banking and finance, manufacturing, trade, healthcare, and government verticals.”

Discrete manufacturing would be the sector spending the most on AI in 2023, followed by banking, retail, and federal/central government. About half (44%) of the region’s overall AI spending would be made up of these four businesses in 2023.

Ranjan, added, “AI growth in the region looks very promising as businesses are increasingly investing in AI- and analytics and business intelligence-based solutions in order to strengthen and expand their customer experiences, build digital capabilities, and drive innovation.

“Augmented customer service agents, fraud analysis and investigation, augmented threat intelligence and prevention systems, and sales process recommendation and augmentation are the key business use cases where organisations are investing more in the market.”