Middle East’s AI Push Attracts South Korean Tech Firms

Posted by By Dan Taylor 3 Min Read

South Korean tech giants, including Samsung and Naver, are expanding into the Middle East as the region intensifies its focus on artificial intelligence (AI) to diversify its oil-reliant economies.

Countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia are ramping up investments in AI, creating opportunities for collaboration with South Korean companies known for their advanced technology and competitive pricing.

Samsung and TSMC Explore UAE Chip Plants

According to the Wall Street Journal, Samsung Electronics and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) are considering building semiconductor manufacturing facilities in the UAE. Though discussions are still in the early stages, such projects could cost over $100 billion.

However, industry experts have raised concerns about the Middle East’s sandy environment and the challenge of securing the superclean water necessary for chip production. Despite these hurdles, both companies are exploring the potential of the UAE as a hub for AI and semiconductor development.

Naver to Open Middle East Headquarters

Naver has announced plans to open its regional headquarters, Naver Arabia, as part of Saudi Arabia’s Regional HQ program.

The headquarters will oversee operations in the Middle East and collaborate on national technology projects. Naver also plans joint ventures with Saudi government entities, including projects with the Saudi Ministry of Municipalities and Housing involving digital twin technology.

The move comes as Saudi Arabia invests heavily in AI, aiming for the sector to contribute 12% to the country’s GDP by 2030. Naver executives recently attended the Global AI Summit 2024 in Saudi Arabia, signing agreements to collaborate on AI, cloud technology, data centers, and robotics.

Korean AI Startups Also Expand in the Middle East

Several Korean AI startups are joining the region’s AI push. Rebellions and FuriosaAI have partnered with Saudi energy giant Aramco to collaborate on supercomputing and AI projects. Wrtn Technology, specializing in generative AI, is also planning to open a regional headquarters in the Middle East after being selected for Dubai’s AI accelerator program.

The Middle East’s stable decision-making structures and long-term investment strategies make it an attractive market for South Korean tech firms, as the region positions itself as a leader in AI and advanced technology.

Source: Wall Street Journal, Naver press release

Dan Taylor
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Dan Taylor is the founder and editor of International Search Insights (ISI), the publication behind ReadIsi, and a Partner and Head of Innovation (Search & AI) at SALT.agency. He has worked in search for more than a decade, in-house and agency-side, and is regarded as one of the West’s leading voices on search engines beyond Google, including Yandex, Baidu, Naver and Cốc Cốc. On ReadIsi, Dan covers the engines and AI answer platforms that English-language coverage tends to miss: Baidu and ERNIE, Yandex and Alice AI, Naver, Cốc Cốc, Shenma, Sogou, WeChat and Weibo search, plus DeepSeek and Alibaba’s Qwen. He also keeps dated records of documented changes, such as the Yandex, Baidu and Naver algorithm update histories and the DeepSeek, ERNIE and Qwen model update histories. His approach is to take learnings from global search engines and apply logic with a high evidence threshold. A claim needs a source, patterns seen in one market are treated as a hypothesis until they are checked in another, and where the evidence is thin he says so. For brands, that means advice built on what can be shown, with measurement that separates being cited from being chosen. Dan is credited with coining the term “edge SEO” and won the inaugural TechSEO Boost research competition in 2018 for his work on CDN and edge changes for SEO. In 2026 he was credited with coining “Infinite Tail” to describe how keyword research is changing with AI search. He is the author of AI Search Marketing For The Travel Sector, writes for Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land and Travel Marketing Guy, and has advised technology, SaaS, travel and enterprise ecommerce brands, including Cloudflare, GitLab and Airbnb. He has given multiple talks and panels at the International Search Summit in Barcelona, and has also spoken at Optimization Moscow, brightonSEO, Google Search Central Live Deep Dive Asia in Bangkok, Athens SEO and the Asia SEO Virtual Summit 2026, where his talk looked at how Baidu, Naver, DeepSeek, Tencent, Cốc Cốc and Yandex built their own AI answers.
Founder & Editor