Snowflake Powers Saudi Startups to Scale AI in Line with Vision 2030
Riyadh, KSA – September 28 2026 – Snowflake, the AI Data Cloud company, has unveiled Snowflake for Startups, providing local founders with the tools, infrastructure, and strategic support to build and scale enterprise-grade AI applications. This initiative aligns with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, which aims to increase SMEs’ contribution to GDP from 20% to 35% and places digital innovation at the centre of the Kingdom’s economic diversification.
Backed by a $100 billion national AI initiative and expanding digital infrastructure, Saudi Arabia is creating the conditions for startups to scale responsibly while meeting local regulatory and data sovereignty requirements. Snowflake for Startups equips founders with a secure, production-ready data and AI platform, helping them accelerate innovation while complying with national priorities.
“Saudi Arabia is building a strong foundation for AI-driven companies that can scale locally and compete globally,” said Michel Nader, Regional Vice President (RVP) for the Middle East, Turkey & Africa, at Snowflake. “With 75% of professionals in the region already using AI, startups must deliver production-grade AI from day one. Snowflake for Startups gives founders a secure and compliant data platform that enables them to innovate faster. ”
“In markets like Saudi Arabia, innovation and compliance go hand in hand,” said Ash Mugridge, RVP of Digital Natives & SMBs, EMEA, Snowflake. “Snowflake for Startups ensures founders can move fast while staying aligned with local regulations, giving them the confidence to scale both locally and internationally.”
Lowering the Barrier to Production-Ready AI
Snowflake for Startups simplifies how early-stage companies access managed AI capabilities. By providing self-service access to enterprise-grade AI infrastructure within Snowflake’s secure environment, startups can build, test, and deploy AI applications and agents without diverting resources to managing complex infrastructure. Startups can also accelerate their product innovation and scale seamlessly by using Cortex REST API, a secured and unified API layer that makes switching between leading AI frontier models easy, trusted, and cost-efficient.
Startups also gain exposure to hundreds of potential customers through the Snowflake Marketplace, technical and go-to-market guidance via the Snowflake Startup Accelerator, and strategic capital through Snowflake Ventures.
How KSA startups are applying Snowflake
Jeeny has adopted Snowflake as the foundation for its new data platform, enabling the company to streamline data management and scale advanced analytics, machine learning, and AI workloads efficiently. By consolidating its data infrastructure on Snowflake’s cloud-native platform, Jeeny has improved performance, reduced operational complexity, and lowered overall costs, while gaining a secure, production-ready environment that supports rapid innovation. Snowflake’s modern, scalable architecture ensures the business can meet growing customer demands and remain competitive in the dynamic mobility sector.
“Snowflake helped us simplify our architecture while giving us a clear path to advanced analytics and generative AI,” said Hammad Ehtesham, CEO of Jeeny. “The platform has improved performance and cost efficiency, while giving us the confidence to scale securely as our data and AI capabilities continue to grow. More importantly, the platform enables us to turn data into insights faster and make smarter decisions that support our continued growth and innovation.”
As a Saudi-based, high-growth technology company specializing in AI, Rime provides virtual presence solutions that enable organizations to monitor operations, gain real-time visibility, and make better-informed decisions. The company adopted Snowflake as its central data platform to support large-scale analytics, AI-driven innovation, and rapid expansion across the Kingdom.
As Rime continues to expand its operations and data volumes, the company leverages Snowflake to overcome the limitations of traditional operational databases, streamline data pipelines, and build a scalable foundation for data-driven growth. Snowflake enables Rime’s teams to access and analyze data more efficiently, turning data into actionable insights and supporting the development of intelligent solutions across its growing portfolio.
Snowflake’s security and data governance capabilities—including role-based access controls, encryption, sensitive-data classification, and monitoring—also support Rime’s data governance and compliance efforts, including its efforts to align with Saudi Arabia’s Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL), subject to Rime’s configuration and broader compliance program.
“As a technology company specializing in AI, we see data as being at the core of how we build, operate, and innovate,” said Mohammed Almarshidi, CEO of Rime. “As we continue to expand our solutions and operations across the Kingdom, having a reliable and scalable data foundation is critical to our growth. Snowflake enables our teams to access insights faster, turn data into actionable intelligence, and build intelligent solutions that create greater value for our customers, while supporting our data governance and compliance efforts and helping us scale efficiently for the long term.”
