du Tech and Rilian sign MoU for sovereign AI cybersecurity in UAE
UAE telecom and digital services provider du has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with agentic AI security firm Rilian to develop sovereign, AI-driven managed security services for critical infrastructure and industrial sectors. The agreement, announced at GISEC Global in Dubai on 5 October 2026, is non-exclusive and centres on integrating Rilian's Caspian platform into du Tech's National Hypercloud sovereign cloud environment.
The partnership targets the convergence of IT and operational technology (OT) security, a growing priority for energy, utilities and industrial operators as connected infrastructure expands and threat actors increasingly target physical-process control systems alongside conventional enterprise networks. du and Rilian say the combined offering will be delivered locally, meeting UAE data sovereignty and regulatory requirements without routing sensitive workloads through offshore infrastructure.
The partnership
Rilian's Caspian platform functions as a unified command layer across a security team's existing technology stack, using pre-trained AI agents to automate analyst workflows, retain institutional knowledge, and support deployment in air-gapped or compliance-restricted environments. Within the du Tech National Hypercloud, Caspian's capabilities will augment the operator's existing managed security services portfolio.
Jasim Al Awadi, Chief ICT Officer of du, said the collaboration was aimed at "creating the foundation to deliver advanced security services nationally, helping critical and industrial sectors strengthen their cyber resilience while meeting the UAE's data sovereignty, regulatory and cybersecurity requirements."
Christian Schnedler, Chief Executive Officer of Rilian, positioned the deal as a step toward making sovereign, expert use of agentic AI-enabled cyber defence available to government and critical infrastructure providers across the country.
The MoU does not disclose financial terms, contract value, or named initial customers. Neither party published technical benchmarks for the Caspian platform, and no timeline was given for when the first sovereign managed security services will be commercially available under the arrangement.
Market context
The Gulf region has become an increasingly active market for sovereign cloud and cybersecurity investment, driven by national digitalisation strategies and heightened concern over attacks on industrial control systems. The UAE's National Cyber Security Strategy for 2025 to 2031 provides the regulatory backdrop for this partnership, aligning with a government-wide push to build domestic cyber resilience rather than depend on foreign-hosted security operations.
Agentic AI applied to security operations is a fast-moving category. Established security operations platform vendors and a growing cohort of AI-native startups are competing to offer autonomous or semi-autonomous analyst-augmentation tooling, and hyperscalers are embedding similar capabilities directly into their own cloud-native security products. For du, the Rilian partnership extends a sovereign cloud strategy that differentiates on data residency and national compliance, rather than on competing directly with global hyperscaler pricing.
The IT/OT convergence angle is particularly significant. Operational technology environments in critical infrastructure have historically been managed separately from enterprise IT, with bespoke protocols and long asset lifecycles. Securing them with AI-driven tooling deployed inside an air-gapped or sovereign cloud boundary represents a genuinely distinct use case from mainstream enterprise security operations, and one where regional, locally delivered managed services carry a structural advantage over globally uniform hyperscaler offerings.
Both du and Rilian are US-ally-aligned in their stated mission, a framing that carries relevance as export-control regimes and supply-chain scrutiny shape which technology vendors can operate in sovereign government environments. Buyers in the UAE will likely assess Rilian's provenance alongside its technical capabilities when evaluating the offer.