Bahrain aims for a big leap in cloud infrastructure investments

In an effort to diversify its oil-dependent economy, Bahrain is in advanced talks with US, Chinese, and Emirati corporations about investment possibilities in cloud computing. 

According to Reuters, cloud computing and foreign direct investment (FDI) are key pillars of Bahrain’s economic recovery program, which includes $30 billion in strategic projects aimed at increasing non-oil GDP by 5 percent this year.

These plans come at a time when the Arab Gulf’s two largest economies, Saudi and the UAE, are turning to technology to diversify their oil-dependent economies.

“Since 2018, Bahrain has hosted a large center for Amazon services on the Internet,” said Ali Al Mudaifa, the Economic Development Board (EDB)’s Chief Investment Officer. “Bahrain has also become the region’s first country to enact a law for storing data of other countries, which allows countries to store information in another country but under their jurisdiction,” he added.

Bahrain, like the rest of the Gulf countries before it, has been working to develop smart financial services as a strategy to attract more foreign capital and find new ways to accelerate economic growth.

Sadiq Jaafar Abdul Rasool, Chief Digital Officer of Bahrain’s e-commerce platform Homiez, said that Bahrain’s adoption of the “Cloud First” policy has contributed to the boom in e-commerce in the Kingdom. “For e-commerce platforms, cloud computing offers a variety of benefits, including cost savings, fast productivity, efficiency, and flexibility, infinite capacity, and database-related security, cash flow, and privacy protection,” Rasool added.

Rasool further noted that the adoption of cloud computing technology by more Bahraini companies and organizations has improved their competitiveness, productivity, profitability, and growth.