Oracle ready to enter Syria once its economy fully opens up

The company is already indirectly present through training and certification programmes

The city of Qamishli is seen in Syria. Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises comprise about 95 per cent of total businesses in the country. Reuters

US technology major Oracle is prepared to enter Syria when it fully opens up as it seeks to support businesses in the country recovering from years of an economy-crippling war, a senior executive has said.

At the moment, Texas-based Oracle is unable to directly conduct business in Syria due to remaining sanctions, but it is able to sell their services through their partners there, Cherian Varghese, senior vice president of Oracle Cloud, said.

But "as soon as Syria will be open for business, we will be there along with our partners to help that country, both the private and public sectors", he told The National on the sidelines of the Oracle AI World conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

Syria is an indirect market for Oracle, but through its partnerships it is able to "support the local ecosystem, [especially] small and medium businesses", he said.

Oracle provides free training and certifications to its partners in Syria, which would set the stage if and when sanctions are fully lifted, allowing the company to establish a base there.

Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises comprise about 95 per cent of total businesses, playing a crucial role in job creation, reducing poverty and fostering social cohesion, latest data from the United Nations Development Programme shows.

"The first glimpses of [opportunity] are coming through, but we still cannot sell there ... but who can stop education?" said Mr Varghese, who also leads Oracle's SME AI business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

"You can always educate; the internet is an open medium. We can always certify, so the customers, partners and SMEs there will learn, and as soon as the market opens up ... we go," he added.

Syria is undergoing an economic revival following the downfall of former president Bashar Al Assad in December last year.

US President Donald Trump lifted most US sanctions on Syria during a Riyadh speech in May. And the US Senate last week moved towards repealing the 2019 Caesar Act, which imposed sanctions on Syria in response to the Assad government's war crimes.

That has opened up business and economic opportunities, with several quarters moving quickly to invest in Syria’s post-Assad future, launching diplomatic, financial and infrastructure support.

This week, at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings in Washington, Syrian Economy Minister Mohammed Al Shaar expressed willingness to co-operate with the US to reassure American businesses that their investments in the country would be secure.

"As an American company, if we are allowed to sell and not under duress by geopolitical or sanction rules, we will be there in that market," Mr Varghese said.

Oracle, meanwhile, continues to be active in the region, especially in the UAE. It teamed up with Abu Dhabi artificial intelligence company G42, OpenAI, Nvidia, Cisco and Japan's SoftBank Group to create the Stargate UAE mega data centre in the emirate to accelerate local development of the technology.

The company also has plans to boost its investment by five times in Abu Dhabi as it seeks to cater to the growing demand for AI and cloud services in the UAE, a senior executive had previously told The National.

'AI to humble us'

Meanwhile, AI will have the ability to "humble" humans by making us realise that there are several areas for improvement that we may not have recognised, Mr Varghese said.

AI's boom has spurred endless platforms and services that have helped people with their tasks, with several industries tapping on the technology.

"Personally, [AI] will make us realise that we don't know a lot of things," he said.

"It will humble us in a big way because [it will make us realise] how much of our human brains we do not utilise," he said, referring to Oracle boss Larry Ellison's presentation at the event in which he detailed how much "unlimited" potential the human mind has.

"I don't think so that arrogance [stemming from the help of AI] would have set into human beings; at a certain point, it would be the other way around," Mr Varghese said.

"You will just realise that the human brain has so much limitations, which could probably take us so many years to develop."