At a time of global recession for big tech, the energy-rich countries of the Gulf are attracting significant inward investment as their economies seek to wean themselves from fossil fuels. This was avidly demonstrated at the latest LEAP annual technology conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia earlier this month, where a number of major deals were announced. One involved Huawei pledging $400m investment over five years for cloud services across the region, to support consumers, enterprises, operators and the public sector. This has been in the offing for some time and is the culmination of several announcements over the past year. The first came in February 2022, at last year’s LEAP, when Huawei signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Saudi…