COVER STORY
Architecting trust: How the UAE is building Sovereign AI at scale
Core42 and VAST Data have partnered to advance the sovereign Core42 AI Cloud for government and regulated industries. Addressing challenges of data sharing and transparency, the platform enables secure, large-scale AI operations. VAST Data CEO, Renen Hallak, and Core42 EVP, Raghu Chakravarthi, share their perspectives on real-time intelligence, innovation and the UAE’ s leadership in Sovereign AI.
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Sovereign AI and UAE leadership
In 2024, Core42 partnered with VAST Data to strengthen the Core42 AI Cloud, a high-performance, scalable and sovereign platform designed for government and regulated industries. By uniting leading accelerators under one roof, the AI Cloud enables training, fine-tuning and inference at speed and scale, while ensuring data and governance remain firmly under national jurisdiction.
For Renen Hallak, CEO of VAST Data, the concept of Sovereign AI is critical for every nation.“ No country wants to depend entirely on others for such a powerful technology – whether for military, commercial, or cultural reasons. Everybody wants to have this ability in-house,” he said.“ Particularly in the UAE, we’ re seeing them leapfrogging other countries in speed and determination. Core42 has been a great partner for us to enable that.”
Hallak added that solving this paradox requires the ability to observe, control and reproduce.“ You want the ability to observe who is accessing what, to understand why certain AI responses are generated and to reproduce those processes over time. All those controls must be in place for Sovereign AI to be effective.”
VAST’ s architecture enables data to move seamlessly across environments while retaining a single system of record. Core42 layers on continuous enforcement of residency, access and compliance policies through its Insight controls.
Raghu Chakravarthi, EVP of Engineering at Core42, emphasises that sovereignty is no longer just about control but about trust at scale.“ By combining scale with trust, Core42 and VAST are setting a new model of sovereignty. Organisations can move data securely, embed Zero Trust principles into the fabric of the AI Cloud and innovate on their own terms.”
The Core42 AI Cloud: Scale with sovereignty
Governments need both scale and control – mobility of data without loss of sovereignty. Traditionally, these have been seen as opposing forces.
“ Scale demanded openness, while sovereignty demanded restriction,” explained Chakravarthi.“ What we are proving with VAST is that the two can be designed to reinforce each other rather than conflict.”
Renen Hallak, CEO of VAST Data
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