The second Gulf Business Breakfast Briefing of 2025, held on April 23, focused on innovation and emerging technologies.
The event brought together leading minds from telecoms, AI, cloud, and blockchain — fields rapidly becoming the foundation of the region’s economic future.
The 5G legacy: Stepping stone towards experience monetisation
5G-Advanced (also known as 5.5G or 5G-A) is an evolutionary upgrade to 5G technology, defined under the 3GPP Release 18 standard. It serves as a transitional phase between 5G and future 6G networks, focusing on performance optimization, enhanced spectral and energy efficiency, and expanded functionality.
“5G-A will always be part of the 5G legacy. What’s interesting is how 5G is shifting the paradigm — not just in terms of traffic monetisation, but now towards experience monetisation,” said Sameer Jameel, chief technology architect at Huawei Middle East and Central Asia, during the ‘Telecoms & Cloud – The Next Frontier’ session at the Gulf Business Breakfast Briefing.
He added, “For applications like live streaming — think concerts or large gatherings — individuals still face challenges sharing videos in real time. Operators in the Middle East and other regions are already working on experience monetisation, ensuring individual customers get the right bandwidth and a seamless data-sharing experience.”
He also highlighted the demand for high bandwidth in vertical industries like smart cities, manufacturing, and agriculture, all of which 5G can support.
How trust and reputation are changing in the age of AI
Technology companies today are harnessing speed, processing power, and big data applications to unlock new levels of insight. These tools now shape public opinion and reputation at an unprecedented scale.
“Take synthetic data, for example — it’s built from millions of interview responses and used to create AI databases that predict opinion trends. But guess what? These are turning out to be some of the most inaccurate models in market research history,” said Mazen Nahawi, founder and group CEO of Carma. “The key issue? The quality of your data and the security around it.”
Flaws in AI
One of AI’s biggest flaws today is the lack of proper data verification. “Anyone can feed data into an LLM (large language model), and most platforms aren’t verifying the sources,” said Nahawi. “For instance, The New York Times is suing OpenAI for scraping content from its digital editions without permission.”
AI: Data gaps in the emerging world
Most data used to train AI doesn’t represent the emerging world. Languages, histories, and perspectives from countries without strong digital infrastructure are often excluded. This positions AI as a tool of the powerful, reflecting their biases rather than global diversity.
Data reinforcement wars
In today’s AI-driven age, even Fortune 500 companies are reportedly using shadow marketing teams to influence data and discredit competitors. “There’s no digital police to take down false data,” Nahawi added. “So these companies manipulate AI to reinforce biased or misleading results.”
Crypto: The next innovation wave
“Crypto is the next wave of innovation, and the UAE is leading the market in several areas,” said Alice Liu, head of research at CoinMarketCap. “Three key areas include tokenized real estate, tokenized gold, and stablecoins.”
According to the Dubai Land Department, tokenized real estate markets in Dubai are expected to grow by around 7.8 per cent annually over the next three years. “They are even issuing $1 billion worth of bonds tied to this trend,” Liu said. “Dubai is becoming a global leader in these developments.”
This was originally published on Gulf Business.
