KERNO and VAST Data Partner to Deliver AI-Ready UAE-Manufactured Infrastructure
This collaboration aligns with the country’s focus on sovereign, locally manufactured digital systems and reinforces national objectives for industrial growth and technological self-reliance.
KERNO, the UAE-based enterprise IT hardware manufacturer, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with VAST Data, the AI Operating System company, to support the deployment of AI-ready data infrastructure produced locally in the UAE. This collaboration aligns with the country’s focus on sovereign, locally manufactured digital systems and reinforces national objectives for industrial growth and technological self-reliance.
The partnership enables government and regulated industry customers to deploy enterprise-grade infrastructure manufactured in the UAE, providing practical advantages such as enhanced supply-chain resilience, faster delivery and servicing, and long-term availability and support. These priorities resonate with the UAE’s Operation 300bn mission and the broader “Make It in the Emirates” initiative, which aim to expand domestic industrial capability and build globally competitive technology sectors.
Under the agreement, KERNO and VAST Data will jointly validate each other’s infrastructure and explore the integration of their solutions. Customers will be able to deploy VAST’s AI Operating System alongside KERNO’s locally produced server infrastructure, supporting AI and data-intensive workloads while meeting performance, scalability, compliance, and data sovereignty requirements.
“Working with VAST Data allows us to support advanced AI workloads while reinforcing the importance of locally manufactured, production-ready platforms designed for the region. Our focus is on building enterprise-grade infrastructure that customers can trust, scale, and operate with confidence.”
– Christopher Caswell, CEO, KERNO
VAST Data’s AI Operating System is designed to support sovereign data environments, offering secure multi-tenancy, granular access controls, and auditable data ownership models. This enables governments and enterprises to maintain strict control over where data resides, how it is accessed, and how it is governed, while deploying AI at scale.
“Working with local vendors like KERNO allows customers to deploy the VAST AI Operating System alongside UAE-built platforms, while exploring validation and deployment models aligned to regional requirements.”
– Haider Aziz, General Manager & VP META, VAST Data
The MoU was signed following a tour of KERNO’s advanced manufacturing facility in Dubai, marking a significant step in the UAE’s push to combine local manufacturing with global software innovation in AI infrastructure.
