How AI is transforming blockchain in the MENA region

Artificial intelligence, a term used for many different subsets of technological advancements, focuses on making machines more intelligent, enabling machine processes and reactions to be similar to humans in the way that it collects data, recognizes voices, and identifies patterns, among many other things.

This technology has helped many businesses all over the world to solve some very specific problems. Artificial intelligence has given rise to many technological systems that we use in our everyday lives such as voice-to-text conversation, facial recognition, self-driving cars, and smart homes.

On the other hand, blockchain is a distributed ledger technology. It is a system of recording information in a secure manner, making it very difficult – and almost impossible – to change or hack. It is a digital ledger of transactions that are duplicated and distributed across an entire network of computer systems on the blockchain.

Blockchain and AI are more than just buzzwords. They have evolved into leading technologies that hold the potential to power innovation in almost every industry. Merging both technologies can do wonders for many businesses. With so much untapped potential, blockchain and AI have transformed a variety of industries, and will likely continue to do so in the future as the technologies continue to mature.

Blockchain aims to secure and update all records, maintaining their authentication and execution, while AI aims to evaluate and make decisions independent from human intervention. Seamlessly integrating these two technologies will help businesses develop more intelligent, robust systems in the future, by enhancing cybersecurity resilience, simplifying data sharing and decentralized control, enabling access to open – yet secure – data market, and enable the handling of data on a much larger scale.

Much of the Middle East and North Africa region have embraced digital transformation, with some ahead of the rest of the world in technology adoption, particularly blockchain and AI.

While it is true that the COVID-19 pandemic caused a global shift in this space, essentially accelerating tech adoption all over the world, GCC countries were already undergoing various transformations in the digital space before the health crisis’ onset.

Two years on from the pandemic, GCC countries have experienced exponential growth and operational efficiency as the region continues to adopt more technologies and is expected to continue to grow in various sectors, especially when it comes to the application of AI and blockchain.

Here are some examples of how the convergence of blockchain and AI can add value to some industries.

Financial services

The amalgamation of blockchain and AI hold great promise to bring new value to businesses and unlock untapped potential. This is being seen in the financial services industry, enabling trust, accelerating the speed of transactions, and removing friction from multi-party transactions.

Building trust in an industry which holds very sensitive customer information is key, and automated processes can help drive faster closings as well as improve customer trust and satisfaction.

Supply chains

Usually, a largely paper-based process, digitizing supply chains can make data shareable and trustworthy. AI and automation can be used to execute transactions and create new opportunities across a wide range of industries’ supply chains.

Healthcare

From automating processes and recognizing patterns to identifying insights directly from patient data, AI holds so much potential when it comes to the healthcare industry.

With patient data on the blockchain, including electronic health records, organizations can collaborate to improve healthcare while maintaining and protecting patient privacy.

Pharmaceutical

When it comes to the pharmaceutical sector, the combination of AI and blockchain can add visibility and traceability to the drug supply chain whilst dramatically increasing clinical trials’ success rates simultaneously.

The combination of advanced data analysis and a decentralized framework for clinical trials enables greater trust in terms of transparency, data integrity, and patient tracking and consent management. This also proves useful in automating trial participation and data collection, saving companies a great deal of time and resources.