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9/8/25, 10:46 AM Inside UAE’s shift to hybrid cloud infrastructure - Teletimes International
strategy – where existing applications are simply transferred to the cloud – and are now

focusing on modernizing their applications and creating new cloud-native solutions.

For Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and IT leaders, this marks a turning point. For the

first time, they have a genuine choice – the ability to align infrastructure decisions not

just with technical requirements, but also with strategic priorities like data sovereignty,

compliance, commercial offers, and service needs. Hybrid cloud, once viewed as a

hypothetical, future-state aspiration, has become a practical and increasingly popular

model.

Key Drivers of This Shift

One of the major drivers of hybrid cloud adoption in the region is cost efficiency. The

economics of traditional data centers are becoming less viable. Between hardware

investment, cooling, staffing, and security, the costs are stacking up, especially as

businesses scale. The second factor is speed to market. In a post-COVID world, speed to

market is no longer a competitive advantage but a necessity. Organizations need to

launch, iterate, and scale digital services without the bottlenecks of traditional IT

infrastructure.

Security and compliance are also among the factors shaping cloud strategies. Industries

handling sensitive or classified data must operate within strict guidelines. Public cloud

adoption for these sectors is not always straightforward, which is where sovereign

clouds play a critical role. Lastly, flexibility is another important factor. Enterprises aim

to avoid being ‘locked in’ to a single vendor or architecture. They are looking for

architectures that support freedom of movement, shifting workloads across platforms

based on changing business needs.

The Hybrid Advantage

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