AI is accelerating container adoption across Saudi enterprises
Shadow AI and organizational silos present growing risks
Data sovereignty remains a top priority for infrastructure decisions
Containers underpin modern application strategies in the Kingdom
RIYADH, KSA, 08 July, 2026 – Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX), a leader in hybrid multicloud computing, today announced the Saudi Arabia findings of its eighth annual Enterprise Cloud Index (ECI) survey and research report, highlighting how organizations in the Kingdom are rapidly embracing AI while navigating challenges related to governance, infrastructure readiness, and data sovereignty.
The findings show that AI adoption is reshaping enterprise IT strategies across Saudi Arabia, driving increased demand for modern application architectures. Containers are emerging as a critical enabler of this transformation. At the same time, organizations face growing complexity as they scale AI initiatives, particularly around visibility, control, and alignment between IT and business functions.
Key findings from the Saudi Arabia report include:
Under pressure to secure data and make It more portable, organizations are increasingly adopting containers to run AI-enabled applications:
Looking ahead over the next three years, the majority (85%) of IT executives in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia expect the level of application containerization within their organization to increase. Most (72%) believe that AI is accelerating their organization’s adoption of containers in a meaningful way, including 24% who think it’s accelerating adoption to a great extent.
Among those using containers to run AI-enabled applications, a strong majority (82%*) are building new applications in containers, either as the primary approach or alongside containerizing legacy applications.
In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, there are multiple drivers for executives to adopt or increase use of containers in the next 12 months, performance (45%), data security (45%), and cost considerations (45%) each ranking high on the list of motivations.
IT professionals are struggling to control how AI applications are implemented across the Enterprise, while also bumping into silos:
Most IT executives in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (77%) believe that the use of AI tools and agents outside of official oversight creates business risk, less pronounced than the global average (87%).
They speak from experience: 65% have encountered AI applications or agents being implemented by employees in non-IT functions, less frequently than their global counterparts (79%).
Shadow AI spreads more easily when business units operate in silos. While a majority of IT executives in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (70%) think that silos between business units and IT stand in the way of their organization’s overall performance and ability to execute technology initiatives effectively –at least to a moderate extent –this sentiment is notably lover than the global average of 82%.
Many organizations are opting for a hybrid approach to storage as they emphasize data sovereignty:
78% of executives in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia rate data sovereignty as a high priority or a must-include in infrastructure decisions.
More than half (53%) feel the need to run their infrastructure within a single country (i.e., domestically), whether on-premises or through a local cloud region, due to security or data protection concerns. This is also the top motivator for the global sample (57%).
Enterprises in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are more frequently running their containerized apps on the public cloud (52%) than they are on-premises or on a private cloud (43%).
Saudi organizations are moving quickly from AI experimentation to real-world deployment, but success depends on having the right foundation in place,” said Talal Alsaif, Regional Director, Central Gulf, Nutanix. “The findings highlight a clear opportunity for enterprises in the Kingdom to modernize their infrastructure with a hybrid multicloud approach that supports containers, strengthens governance, and ensures data sovereignty. By aligning IT and business strategies, organizations can unlock AI’s full potential while managing risk and maintaining control.”
The global Enterprise Cloud Index report, now in its eighth year, surveyed 1,600 IT, cloud, and engineering decision-makers worldwide, including respondents from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to assess enterprise progress in cloud adoption, containerization, and AI deployment.
